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“SO THEY BATTLED ON, THE WOMEN 
FIGHTING AS BRAVELY AS THE 
MEN.” — Page 112 . 


The Red Spell 



FRANCIS GRIBBLE 

A M 


WITH FRONTISPIECE BY 

FRANK M. GREGORY 



TRew UJorft anb Xonbon 


FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 







COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved. 


THE RED SPELL. 


CHAPTER I. 

The place was the Palace of the 
Tuileries, and the time was the 
evening of the fourteenth day of 
May, 1871. There was a great fete 
given there that night, “ for the 
benefit ” — so ran the placards — “ of 
the widows and orphans of the 
Commune. Just seven days later, 
the soldiers of Versailles were to 
pour into Paris through the Saint 
Cloud Gate, and, in the name of 
order, snuff the Commune out. But, 
for the mass of the people, there 
were no signs of that as yet ; and, 
in the meantime, the widows and 


4 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


orphans profited, and the lights 
flared from the windows of the 
palace, and the populace made 
holiday in the gardens. 

For the rule of Commune in Paris 
was not, as some suppose, a reign 
of gloom and terror. Its gloom 
disappeared before the native 
gaiety of a mercurial people ; its 
terror was only for an individual 
here and there. 

Certain things happened, it is 
true — the picturesque things that 
people talked about. A few priests 
were arrested — your true Parisian 
revolutionist is never quite so happy 
as when he is arresting priests. A 
few nuns were taken from their 
convents and packed off to the 
Penitentiary at St. Lazare — the 
relations between revolutionists and 
nuns are nearly always strained. 
Queer stories were told, too, of the 
unseemly midnight revelry of loose 
company at the Prefecture of Police. 


Gbe TRcb Spell. 


5 


And detachments of the National 
Guard, more often drunk than 
sober, would knock at the door of 
any house they chose to pitch upon, 
and search the premises for con- 
scripts, who would be promptly 
uniformed and marched off to the 
trenches at Neuilly or Courbevoie. 
And peaceable civilians, who dis- 
liked to be enlisted in this rough 
and ready manner, might be con- 
strained to hide themselves in 
empty wine casks in the cellar, or 
to bribe the sentries to lower them 
over the ramparts after night-fall. 
Also, there was a park of artillery 
in the square opposite the Hotel de 
Ville , and the ruffians of Belleville 
— male and female — made club- 
houses of the churches, and would 
smoke and drink there, using the 
font for a tobacco box ; and soldiers 
would be met marching out to bat- 
tle with loaves of bread stuck on the 
points of their bayonets ; and the 


6 


Zb e IReD Spell. 


casual passer-by, as he went down 
the street, would be stopped and 
bidden to lend a hand at the build- 
ing of a barricade. 

But these things — the picturesque 
and painful things — only happened 
intermittently, and have been re- 
membered and talked about out of 
all relation to their real importance. 
They were, in fact, to most people 
rather a show to look on at than an 
essential part of life. For most 
people, after all, were not arrested, 
and most people escaped the visita- 
tions of the National Guards, or 
found them corruptible with five 
franc pieces, so that the social life 
of Paris went on much as usual. 
The rich were still rich, and the poor 
still poor, although the Commune 
had abolished rents. The workmen 
still drank the same thin, sour wine 
as heretofore, while Monsieur Raoul 
Regault, and his friend Monsieur 
Ferre spent eighty francs upon a 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


7 


single lunch. For the rest, the 
children still went to school, the 
cafes were still open and fre- 
quented, shops still exhibited their 
wares, the theatres still gave per- 
formances to crowded houses, and 
the mass of men and women were 
more occupied with their own pri- 
vate comedies and tragedies than 
with the greatest drama of the 
social revolution that was being 
played out in their midst. Above 
all, the people still kept their gaiety, 
and still amused themselves. 

That night in particular the 
gaiety was great. Emperor Napo- 
leon and his court had shut the 
people out from the Garden of the 
Tuileries, and now they had come 
into their own again, and were wel- 
coming themselves back to their 
estate, without any thought of the 
horrors that were to come. The 
shells from the bombarding bat- 
teries that burst in the dark avenue 


8 


Gbe IReb Spell 


of the Champs Elysees near at hand 
only moved their mirth. They 
laughed and sang and danced and 
pushed against each other like 
children just let out to play. 

There must have been ten thou- 
sand merry-makers at the least — 
high and low, rich and poor, well- 
dressed and ragged. But this story 
only concerns itself with two of 
them — two lovers, whose true love 
the Commune had arrived to trouble 
— Elise Rollin, the shop-girl of the 
Rue de Rivoli, and Ernest Durand, 
the Member of the Council of the 
Commune. And even they, for the 
moment, had forgotten to think 
about the things that were most 
serious to them, and had caught 
the infection of the general merri- 
ment. 

“You take me everywhere, Ern- 
est, you must show me everything , ” 
she said. 

So the Member of the Council of 


Gbe IReO Spell. 


9 


the Commune gave Elise his arm 
and showed her all the sights. 
They passed through the Salle des 
Marechaux, where Mademoiselle 
Agar, the great tragedienne, was 
celebrating the revolution in Alex- 
andrine verse ; they loitered in the 
galleries, listening to the quaint 
comments of sightseers who had 
come all the way from Belleville or 
Saint Antoine or Mont-rouge to find 
out what an emperor’s palace might 
be like ; they stood for a while in 
the great hall, where an orchestra 
of a thousand instruments pealed 
out the “ Marseillaise.” Then they 
strolled down into the gardens, 
where the Venetian lamps hung 
upon the orange-trees, and the peo- 
ple prattled as they sat or roamed 
about, and the lovers kissed each 
other in the arbors, and the music 
tried to drown the distant booming 
of the cannon at the Porte Maillot. 

But the thunder of the guns was 


10 


Gbe IfteD Spell. 


louder than the melodies of Offen- 
bach. Elise heard them booming 
out beyond the ramparts, and the 
sound hastened the inevitable reac- 
tion and made her grave and serious 
again. 

“ Take me out of the crowd, 
Ernest,” she said, “ I want to talk.” 

He found a vacant arbor where 
they could be undisturbed, and they 
sat down in it together. 

And yet, for a space, neither of 
them spoke. It was so good to be 
together, enjoying the present with- 
out thought of the troubles that 
seemed so sure to overtake them 
soon — so hard to recognize by any 
formal word that love must presently 
yield to politics the first place in the 
life of every faithful servant of the 
Commune. So Elise Rollin nestled 
close to her lover, clinging to his 
arm with both her little hands, and 
looking up, through her brown 
clustering curls into his face. 


Gbe 1Re£> Spell. 


ii 


It was not a handsome face. 
The features were irregular and 
rough, and the right cheek carried 
a scar, earned on the field of honor 
at Bazenville. But the bright grey- 
eyes were good. Frankness and 
enthusiasm were always there, and 
now they also shone with love — the 
love of a strong man for a woman 
whom he must protect. And the 
mouth, too, was good, for its lines 
spelt determination. It was the 
mouth of a man who would do what 
he believed that duty bade him do, 
even though love itself should try 
to draw him back. 

Yet there would be a struggle. 
For days he had felt the crucial 
moment of that struggle drawing 
nearer ; and now, at last, it had ar- 
rived. For Elise clutched at his 
elbow pleadingly, and began to talk 
about the Commune. 

“ Listen,” she said. “ The guns 
are nearer now. Always and always 


12 


Cbe TReD Spell. 


nearer. The Commune is being 
beaten, Ernest. Am I not 
right ? ” 

He put his arm round her, and 
held her closer to him as he an- 
swered, — 

“ The Commune is not beaten 
yet, my sweetheart.” 

But still she was not reassured. 

“ Not yet, Ernest, no, not yet,” 
she said ; “ and still I am afraid, 
for every day I read the placards 
on the walls telling of the great 
victories that we have won, and 
every day the shells of the Ver- 
saillais fall closer and closer to the 
heart of Paris. Oh, yes, I am 
afraid, Ernest — terribly and terri- 
bly afraid.” 

It was a hard thing for him to bear ; 
for he, too, was afraid — for her. 
Yet he kissed her tenderly, and said 
what words he could to try and 
dissipate her fears. The Commune 
had been mismanaged. Wrong men 


Gbe 1 ReD Spell. 13 

had been suffered to have influence 
in its councils. There had been 
traitors. But the presence of dan- 
ger had brought the true leaders of 
the people to the front. And the 
Parisians could fight — none better. 
Paris had fought France before and 
conquered — in ’93, in ’48. 

But his arguments did not avail 
to quell her fears. They could not 
while the grim voices of the guns 
were sounding in her ears. 

Her impulse was to cry, but she 
withstood it. Yet a beginning of 
tears was in her voice as she said 
the thing she had begun to feel, but 
hardly dared to say. 

“ Oh, Ernest, I think that I begin 
to hate this Commune.” 

That, too, was hard for him to 
bear, seeing that he was one of the 
few men to whom the Commune 
represented a great political ideal, 
and not a mere scheme, like an- 
other, for plundering his neighbors. 


tlbe IReD Spell. 


M 

Yet the speech did not shake his 
love for her. He understood that 
it was only her love for him — her 
fear that the Commune should 
come between them — that had in- 
spired it. He could not be angry 
with her for that. None the less, 
he protested gently. 

“ And yet you used to tell me 
that you loved the Commune once, 
Elise,” and went on to remind her 
of the time. 

“ Do you remember,” he asked 
her, “ that afternoon in March when 
I took you to see the cannon on 
Butte Mont-martre — the cannon we 
had dragged up on to the hill, so that 
the Prussians might not take them. 
It was the day after I had asked 
you to marry me, and you had prom- 
ised. We were so happy, both of 
us, as we walked in the sunshine, 
and I talked to you of all that the 
Commune was to do for Paris, and 
you listened, and were glad, and full 


Gbe IReD 5 pen. 


15 

of hope. Oh, yes, Elise, you loved 
the Commune, then.” 

There was a smile — a sad smile — 
on her lips as she replied : 

“ Perhaps I thought so, Ernest, 
but I know better now. I am quite 
sure now that it was you and not 
the Commune that I loved.” 

He pressed one of her little hands 
in both of his, and she continued, 
whispering in his ear : 

“ Don’t you see, Ernest ? Don’t 
you understand ? I’m jealous of 
the Commune.” 

“ No, no, my sweetheart. There 
is no reason,” he answered, quickly. 

She went on : 

“ Ah, but I am jealous, Ernest, 
and there is every reason. Once, 
for a little while, I think, I was 
jealous of — you know — that other 
woman ” 

He interrupted her with solemn 
protestations : 

“You were jealous of Suzanne? 


16 Gbc IReD Spell* 

You were jealous of La Capitaine — 
a mere acquaintance of the cafes — a 
woman whom I would not even 
speak of in your presence. But 
you know, Elise, that there never 
was anything between us, and that 
if there ever was anything, it is 
over long ago. If it makes you un- 
happy to think of her, I will tell you 
that I hate her." 

Elise made haste to answer : 

“Yes, I know, I know. I am not 
jealous of her now. Only I heard 
people talk, and she is pretty, and 
she sits on barricades, and says 
she will fight for the Commune 
with the men, and just for a little 
while I thought — but I know better 
now. It is only the Commune that 
makes me jealous now, because the 
Commune is going to take your 
love away from me." 

“ Not that, Elise, not that ! " 

There was an earnest passion in 
his accents that emboldened her. 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


1 7 


She looked fondly into his clear 
grey eyes, and then, in soft, caress- 
ing tones, appealed to him. 

“ Ernest, love is worth more than 
politics.” 

He did not speak. 

“ One cannot have both, Ernest — 
not in these days. One has to 
choose, and if one chooses love — ” 

But still no answer, though he 
half guessed what she was about to 
say. 

“ And, if one chooses love, I say, 
before it is too late, why then all 
that one has to do is to leave Paris.” 

It was what he had feared, and, 
as they sat there, in the dim ro- 
mantic light, with the music vol- 
uptuously singing in their ears, 
reminding them of all the joys that 
had been and might be again for 
happy lovers, the impulse was 
strong on him to yield — to give up 
everything, and take Elise away 
with him into the quiet country 


18 Zhe IReb Spell* 

where men lived at peace with one 
another. But, even while he felt 
the longing, he was ashamed of it. 
He could not be a traitor — a coward 
— like Rochefort, like Felix Pyat. 

“ Sweetheart,” he answered, gen- 
tly, “ you must not ask me to do 
that. It is impossible.” 

“ Not impossible, Ernest,” she 
pleaded. 

“Yes, sweetheart, impossible. 
You do not love the Commune ? 
No. But you would not love me if 
I betrayed the Commune — if I be- 
trayed any cause that I had sworn 
to serve. And even if you did, 
I should know that I was not 
worthy of your love.” 

He went on, his eloquence in- 
creasing as he spoke of the cause 
which he loved as ardently as any 
Christian martyr loved his faith of 
old. 

“ No, no, Elise, you must not ask 
me to do that. There are some 


Cbe IReb Spell. 19 

things that a man must not do, even 
for love. It is a great cause — this 
cause of the Commune that we are 
fighting for. It is the cause of the 
poor — of the workers — in all coun- 
tries and for all time. You think 
we have done very little for the 
workers yet. True ; but we have 
done something. Already they are 
happier, already their lives are 
brighter than in the old days when 
the bourgeoisie had their way with 

them. There is still much to be 
done ; even the Commune can not 
do everything at once. But if the 
leaders of the Commune fall away 
from it as soon as danger threatens, 

then, indeed, nothing will be done. 

No, no. One must be brave. One 
must not turn one’s back on one’s 
whole life. One must go through 
with things, and afterwards ” 

The noise of the artillery beyond 
the ramparts fell again on Elise 
Rollin’s ear. She shuddered. 


20 


Gbe tReb Spell, 


“ But suppose the Commune is 
beaten, Ernest," she said. “Then 
there will be no afterwards for you 
and me. What do you say then ? ” 

It was a hard effort ; for he had to 
resist himself as well as her. But 
he replied : 

“ I still say, my sweetheart, that 
one must be brave.” 

And then, after a pause : 

“ Elise, will you not help me to 
be brave ? " 

For her, too, it was an effort. For 
she saw, more clearly than he did, 
how hopeless was the cause he fought 
for. But she answered, letting her 
head droop upon his shoulder : 

“Yes, Ernest, I will try to help 
you to be brave." 

And then they sat silent, holding 
one another's hands, until the 
thinning of the crowd warned Elise 
that it was time that she was taken 
home, and Ernest that Delescluze 
had given him a midnight appoint- 
ment at the H6tel de Ville. 


CHAPTER II. 

Cabs were still plying for hire in 
Paris, although the death agony of 
the Commune was so near. So Er- 
nest Durand drove with Elise to the 
house where she was living in Gre- 
noble, on the south of the Seine. 

They hardly spoke, as the ram- 
shackle carriage jolted them over 
the clattering stones. For their 
hearts were far too full for small 
talk, and the pressing things that 
Elise wished to say were said. As- 
sured that the Commune had not 
taken her lover’s love away from 
her, she was submissive and docile 
as a child, and for the moment very 
nearly happy. 

“ You won’t ask me to leave Paris 


22 


Gbe IReb Spell, 


any more, Elise?” he said, when 
they stood at last upon the door- 
step. 

“ No, Ernest, I won't ask you 
that, if duty says that you must 
stay.” 

“ And you will help me to be 
brave, my sweetheart ? ” 

“ Yes, dearest, I will try to help 
you to be brave.” 

Then he said what he could to 
cheer and to encourage her, repeat- 
ing that the Commune was not 
beaten yet, that, now that they had 
closed their ranks and healed their 
discord, there was still good hope 
that they would drive the Versail- 
lais back ; and so said good-night, 
and drove off to keep his political 
appointment. 

It was not an appointment of any 
consequence — merely an appoint- 
ment to discuss matters of no im- 
mediate importance. For it was 
the prevailing characteristic of the 


£be IRcD Spell. 


2 3 


Communists that they continued to 
discuss matters of no immediate 
importance to the last. Even when 
the enemy was within their walls a 
batch of them were sitting in solemn 
conclave to discuss the hours on 
which the people should be admitted 
to the public picture-galleries and 
museums. 

So Ernest Durand, who had a 
keener eye for the realities than 
some of them, wearied of the un- 
profitable talk, and excused himself 
as soon as he was able. 

Besides, his personal life had be- 
come rather more real than usual 
to him during these last two hours, 
and there were things that he 
wanted to think out. 

In spite of the lateness of the 
hour, the cafes were still open ; but 
he entered none of them, though 
friends, every now and again, recog- 
nized and called to him. 

Only once he was obliged to stop 


24 


Cbe TRcD Spell. 


— as he was crossing the Boulevard 
Mont-martre. For, just as he was 
passing the Cafe de Madrid, a wo- 
man ran out into the road and 
spoke to him — that other woman — 
the woman of whom Elise had said 
that once, for a little while, she had 
been jealous. 

Truly she was pretty enough to 
give cause for jealousy — a very 
different sort of person from the 
dames des Halles , from whom most 
of the Amazons of the Commune 
were recruited. Her short blue 
skirts were trimmed with red. She 
wore untanned boots, and a tiny 
blue hat, with red feathers arranged 
in it coquettishly. Even the pistol 
stuck in her belt had a coquettish 
air in it, though it seemed likely 
that she would use that pistol read- 
ily enough when the occasion came. 
To anyone who saw her it was 
quite clear how Suzanne Touffroy 
had come to be called La Capitaine. 


Gbe *Keb Spell. 


25 


She called to Ernest Durand as 
she saw him pass, but he affected 
not to hear. Then she ran after 
him and took him by the arm. He 
shook her off almost rudely, say- 
ing that he had no time to stay and 
talk. 

But she detained him ; though, in 
truth, she had nothing in particular 
to say to him — nothing beyond the 
old story that she loved him, and 
that she too was jealous ; — and he 
had to stop and listen, knowing by 
experience, what sort of scene she 
was capable of making if he refused. 

It was nothing to her that they 
were standing in the middle of the 
boulevard — a place unfit for senti- 
mental confidences and recrimina- 
tions. Heedless of that, she poured 
reproaches volubly into his ear. 
She loved him and he did not 
return her love. That was the 
burden of her grievance ; and she 
spoke to him as though he had 


26 Gbe TReD Spell* 

actually been her lover and for- 
-saken her — for this and the woman 
whom he was to marry. 

“Even now,” she said, “you 
come back from seeing her. Oh, 
yes ; I am sure of it.” 

He was very angry, but he tried 
to calm her, saying : 

“You are wrong, Suzanne. It is 
only business that has brought me 
here — the business of the Com- 
mune.” 

The word brought a fresh thought 
into her mind. 

“Good. Vive la Commune. We 
both love the Commune — you and 
I. But that gives me an idea. 
Does she also love the Commune ? 
Does she too cry, ‘ Vive la Com- 
mune.’ Eh ? ” 

He checked her. There were 
things of which he would not suffer 
her to speak to him. But she per- 
sisted. 

“ Oh, no ; she does not love the 


Cbe IReD Spell* 


2 7 


Commune. I know it. She hates 
the Commune. When the Com- 
mune has to fight she will cry to 
you and beg you to pack up your 
things and run away.” 

It was so true ; and it seemed so 
strange to her that he, who had 
toiled for the Commune from the 
beginning, should prefer the woman 
who was afraid to the woman who 
would be proud to stay and fight 
with him. Striking that chord, she 
tried to play on his emotions. She 
told him passionately that he was a 
traitor and then, as passionately, 
unsaid the words. 

“ No, no. You won’t be a traitor. 
I don’t think that of you, Ernest. 
But you will be tempted as you 
would never have been had it been 
me that you had loved. You will 
be strong, but you will be tempted 
all the same. I should not have 
tempted you. The Revolution is in 
my blood as it is in yours, and what 



28 


Zbc IReb Spell. 


I don’t fear for myself I should not 
have feared for you. We would 
have faced everything together 
without regret if only you had loved 
me. It would have been easy. Oh, 
why didn’t you love me, Ernest ; 
why didn’t you love me ! ” 

So she poured out her undis- 
ciplined emotions passionately and 
unavailingly. For Ernest Durand’s 
thoughts were far away from her in 
the little apartment at Grenoble. 
He had no wish to stay there and be 
reminded of any careless words that 
he might have spoken to her in the 
past before Elise came into his life 
and — save for the Commune — filled 
it. All that he wanted was to 
escape from her and think. At last 
she let him. 

“There, go on your business,” 
she said. “ Only kiss me first, so 
that I may try to think that you 
will love me some day. Else I shall 
hate you. Good-night.” 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


29 


He kissed her. It was a kiss 
that Elise would have forbidden, 
seeing that it was very cold and 
formal, and was only the price that 
he had to pay to her to let him go 
in peace. 

Then she left him and went back 
into the Cafe de Madrid, while he 
walked rapidly on to his apartment, 
trying to shake off the memory of 
the meeting, as one shakes off the 
memory of an ugly nightmare, that 
is forgotten when the breakfast 
comes. 

His lodging was on the fourth 
floor of a house in one of the streets 
near by. He rang the bell, and the 
concierge, in due course, pulled the 
cord that raised the latch. 

Entering, he lit his lamp and took 
a cigar out of his case, and threw 
himself down in an easy chair to 
think. For he had much to think 
about, since that long talk with 


30 Gbe 1 Reb Spell. 

Elise in the Garden of the Tuile- 
ries. 

Of deserting the Commune, in- 
deed, he could not think even for a 
moment. The Commune was his 
religion, and all the circumstances 
of his stormy life forbade the bare 
idea of such a thing. As , Suzanne 
had said to him, the Revolution was 
in his blood — had been the tradi- 
tion of his family for generations. 
His grandfather had been one of 
the men of ’93 ; his father had died 
on one of the barricades of ’48 — a 
barricade that he himself, a boy of 
ten, had helped to build : he had 
learned revolutionism — as other 
children learn the Scriptures — at 
his mother’s knee. The martyrs, 
for him, were not the Christian 
saints, but those who had endured 
death or durance for championing 
the rights of man. 

Himself too, in the past, had suf- 
fered hardship for the revolutionary 


Cbe IReD Spell. 3 r 

cause. Under the Empire, for a 
brief space, he had been a journal- 
ist and pamphleteer ; and his 
pamphlets had displeased the 
government, and earned him six 
months imprisonment at Mayas. 
Afterwards to avoid more imprison- 
ment, he had had to leave the coun- 
try, and for a while had made his 
living by teaching French in a small 
English private school — a painful 
task he still remembered with 
abhorrence. 

Yet even in this character he had 
made more impression than the for- 
eign language master usually made. 
For a long time they used to tell 
stories in that school of the mas- 
terly way in which Monsieur Du- 
rand had quelled a certain attempt 
at mutiny. There was nothing to 
tell, except that he had given orders 
which were immediately obeyed 
by those who had made up their 
minds to disobey and already begum 


32 


Cbe 1 ReD Spell. 


to riot. But that was a thing that 
had not happened in the French 
class for many generations, and it 
had seemed to the boys to mark 
Monsieur Durand out as different 
from the general run of Frenchmen, 
and they had idolized him in spite 
of his political opinions, which he 
was never at any pains to hide. 

Even when he came by request 
one day to their debating society, 
and, forgetting the nature of his 
audience, orated, as he would have 
liked to orate from the window of 
the Hotel de Ville, lashing the vices 
of the bourgeoisie, and denouncing 
priests and kings, they did not shout 
him down, in spite of the stalwart 
Constitutionalism which is innate 
in every British boy. Instead, some 
of them began to invent romantic 
legends to account for his exile 
from his native land. It was whis- 
pered that he had been the lover of 
Empress Eugenie, and that Em- 


Cbe IReb Spell, 


33 


peror Napoleon was jealous of him, 
and that this was the sentimental 
origin of his rancor against the im- 
perial regime. His denial of the 
legend, when it reached him, was 
put down to his credit as a modest 
man. 

That was the story of his life in 
England. It ended with the out- 
break of the war with Germany, and 
the proclamation of the Republic. 
Then he had returned to Paris, and 
served through the siege as a pri- 
vate in the National Guard. From 
that time onward he had been to 
the front in every revolutionary 
movement ; in the first abortive 
rising of October, when Monsieur 
Jules Ferry was made to eat rats in 
the Hotel de Ville, then in the suc- 
cessful revolution of the 18th of 
March, when Generals Le Comte 
and Clement Thomas were shot, and 
Paris ceased to take its orders from 
Versailles. The elections that fol- 


34 


Gbe TReD Spell, 


lowed had returned him a member 
of the Council of the Commune ; 
and he had grown in influence as a 
revolutionary leader ever since. 

The memory of all these things 
crowded through his brain, and left 
no room for any thought of turning 
back. Only he was troubled — terri- 
bly troubled — about Elise, whose 
sad eyes seemed to be gazing at him 
reproachfully, through the coiling 
wreaths of smoke that rose from 
the end of his cigar, and hung heav- 
ily in mid-air above the lamp. For, 
clearly, his love for her, and his 
duty to the Commune called him 
different ways ; and when the ways 
diverged, it was the path of duty 
that he would have to follow. 

“ Have I not done her a wrong ? ” 
he asked himself ; and then pro- 
ceeded, arguing aloud : 

“ Not that she will be in any dan- 
ger. No, the Commune does no 
harm to helpless women ; and even 


Gbe TReb Spell. 


35 


Thiers’ butchers, if they get among 
us, will not hurt one so helpless as 
Elise.” And then : 

“ Still, was I not wrong to love 
her — to let her love me — seeing 
that I belong not to myself but to 
the Commune ? Sometimes I fear 
so. Ah ! If only I had foreseen — ! 
But then how was I to foresee that 
the things would happen that should 
make it wrong ? ” 

His mind went back to the days 
when his love for her began — the 
days of mingled relief and ignominy,, 
just after the first siege of Paris. 
He remembered his walks and talks 
with her on the Boulevards, on the 
ramparts, in the park at Belleville* 
in the dismantled Bois de Boulogne. 
Even then, he recollected, he had 
talked politics with her ; but poli- 
tics had been less exigent and ab- 
sorbing then, and she had not been 
jealous of them. His eloquence 
aroused her sympathy ; she felt the 


36 


Gbe TReD Spell, 


spell of it, without, except in the 
most shadowy fashion, understand- 
ing what it meant. That he should 
talk like that seemed to her to prove 
that he was good and noble ; and 
that was all she cared about. So 
she used to listen to him admiringly 
with open eyes, and he was per- 
suaded that she loved the revolu- 
tion when in truth, as she had since 
so naively told him, she only loved 
the revolutionist. For, though she 
did not know it, till the times got 
troubled, at the bottom of her heart 
she had all the bourgeois’ natural 
dread of revolution. 

Ernest Durand knew this now, 
and felt that he might have guessed 
it from the beginning. A smile 
flickered on his lips faintly as he 
thought of it. 

“ Yes, it is strange,” he said to 
himself, “ that I should love a bour- 
geoise — I who have been fighting 
with the bourgeoisie all my life.” 


Gbe l ReD Spell. 


37 


Yet he did love her, and when he 
thought of her he felt — what he 
had never fully felt before — that 
she had already begun to infect him 
with something of the bourgeois 
spirit. For he saw that the bour- 
geois life meant the home, with all 
its serene and quiet joys ; and his 
own life had always been so restless 
and so turbulent that the thought 
of home appealed to him. 

Especially had his life been tur- 
bulent of late. So many things had 
happened since those days of Feb- 
ruary and March, when they had 
rambled happily through Paris, 
talking, indeed, of many things, but 
thinking only of each other. The 
revolution had broken out, and the 
Commune been proclaimed. For 
two months the Commune had ruled 
Paris, and tried to regenerate so- 
ciety, with one hand, while it was 
fighting for its existence with the 
other. Then Monsieur Thiers, baf- 


40 


Cbe TRcD Spell. 


lieved to be his duty, that they 
were full of tears. 

“ My poor Elise. I am so sorry 
for you, my poor Elise.” 

Those were his last words before 
he fell asleep. 


CHAPTER III. 


Truly the things to be done 
were many, and the time for senti- 
ment was short. So during the last 
days of the Commune, as on the 
night of his parting from Elise, 
Ernest Durand continued to work 
hard. He was a very glutton for 
hard work — one of the few Com- 
munists, and they were very few, 
who would rather work than talk 
and drink absinthe. 

He was not, and he did not pre- 
tend to be, a soldier. Throughout 
the days when Monsieur Bergeret, 
bookseller’s assistant, signed him- 
self General Bergeret, and all sorts 
of shopkeepers and clerks and arti- 
sans were called Captain and Major, 
and even Colonel, Ernest Durand 


42 


Gbe 1 Reb Spell, 


never put on a uniform. Like Citi- 
zen Delescluze, delegate at war, 
who was his hero among the Com- 
munists, he always dressed as a 
civilian, in a sober suit of black, 
with the red scarf of the Commune 
knotted over it on ceremonial occa- 
sions. 

But he was busy none the less. 
He had a commission — the sort of 
commission that went begging be- 
cause the talkers did not care about 
it — to consider what measures could 
be taken by the Commune to im- 
prove the condition of the laboring 
classes. It was the work he loved, 
because it promised to be useful 
work ; and because it was the hope 
it held out to the laboring classes 
that made the Commune glorious in 
his eyes. He toiled at it with a 
patience that the talkers sometimes 
smiled at when they sat in the 
cafes swaggering and sipping their 
absinthe. Sure of duty, he brushed 


Gbe IReO Spell. 


43 


his personal anxieties rudely on one 
side to make room for it ; and while 
the cannon were thundering at the 
city gates and the aides-de-camp 
were galloping through the streets 
carrying their dispatches to the 
Hotel de Ville, Ernest Durand was 
sitting alone in the silence of his 
bureau, struggling to forget his 
troubles for Elise, while he thridded 
his way resolutely through complex 
and mysterious statistics. 

From time to time he had to deal 
with interruptions. It was hard for 
him not to be drawn into the vortex 
of the general talk, when, day after 
day, the talkers came to him 
to consult him about their duties, 
instead of leaving him to do his 
own. Ought not So-and-So to be 
arrested ? they would ask him. And 
did he not think it would be well if 
such and such a journal were sup- 
pressed ? Had he seen this or that 
proclamation, and what did he think 


44 


Cbe TReD Spell. 


of it ? Should not a barricade be 
built here instead of there ? How- 
ever hurriedly he might send them 
away they wasted precious time. 

There were also the interruptions 
of his private life ; for no man can 
get rid altogether of his private life 
because he is a figure in a public 
crisis. 

So Suzanne Touffroy, for example, 
came more than once, to interrupt 
him, dodging his concierge who 
would have told her that Monsieur 
Durand was busy and could receive 
no visitors. It seemed to her that, 
as the day of battle neared, his 
heart would be softened towards 
her who was prepared to fight so 
bravely — and so picturesquely — for 
his cause. 

Professedly, indeed, she came to 
ask for information. But the an- 
swer always was that there was no 
information for her beyond the 
property of all the world. Then she 


Cbe TReb Spell. 45 

would stay as long as he would let 
her, asking questions. 

“ There will be street fighting 
presently ? ” she would ask him. 

“ Perhaps. One does not build 
barricades merely that you may sit 
upon them.” 

“ And soon ? ” 

This, with passionate impatience 
in her tone and in her eyes, as 
though she were in a hurry for the 
battle to begin. 

“ It may be soon, it may be late. 
I cannot tell you.” 

“ Arid you ? When there is fight- 
ing, you will not stay shut up in 
your bureau ? You also will come 
down into the streets and fight ? ” 

“Yes, I also shall fight when I 
am wanted.” 

“ Where then ? ” 

“ Where I am ordered.” 

“ And where is that ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Why do you ask 
me ? ” 


44 


Cbe IReD Spell. 


of it ? Should not a barricade be 
built here instead of there ? How- 
ever hurriedly he might send them 
away they wasted precious time. 

There were also the interruptions 
of his private life ; for no man can 
get rid altogether of his private life 
because he is a figure in a public 
crisis. 

So Suzanne Touffroy, for example, 
came more than once, to interrupt 
him, dodging his concierge who 
would have told her that Monsieur 
Durand was busy and could receive 
no visitors. It seemed to her that, 
as the day of battle neared, his 
heart would be softened towards 
her who was prepared to fight so 
bravely — and so picturesquely — for 
his cause. 

Professedly, indeed, she came to 
ask for information. But the an- 
swer always was that there was no 
information for her beyond the 
property of all the world. Then she 


Gbe TReD Spell. 


45 


would stay as long as he would let 
her, asking questions. 

“ There will be street fighting 
presently ? ” she would ask him. 

“ Perhaps. One does not build 
barricades merely that you may sit 
upon them.” 

“ And soon ? ” 

This, with passionate impatience 
in her tone and in her eyes, as 
though she were in a hurry for the 
battle to begin. 

“ It may be soon, it may be late. 
I cannot tell you.” 

“ Arid you ? When there is fight- 
ing, you will not stay shut up in 
your bureau? You also will come 
down into the streets and fight ? ” 

“Yes, I also shall fight when I 
am wanted.” 

“ Where then ? ” 

“ Where I am ordered.” 

“ And where is that ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Why do you ask 
me?" 


46 


Gbe TReD Spell, 


“ Why do I ask ? Because I want 
to fight with you — on the same bar- 
ricade. You won’t refuse to let me 
fight with you ? ” 

Thus she would talk, and some- 
times add reproaches — the old re- 
proaches that he was used to hear 
from her. She would remind him 
he had been kind to her once, in 
the days when she was poor, and 
needed kindness — would recall 
careless words that he had spoken 
in the days when Elise had not yet % 
come into his life, and he had some- 
times related his leisure in the 
Cafes of the Latin Quarter. She 
would even invent promises that 
he had never given and complain 
because he had not kept them. 
And, always when she had to leave 
him, her last words would be : 

“Ah! well. You will have to 
love me when I come to fight with 
you — on the same barricade.” 

That, then, was one of his inter- 


Cbe IRcD Spell, 


47 


ruptions. The others were when 
he left his work of his own accord 
to cross the Seine to Grenoble, and 
see Elise. 

He told her nothing of his meet- 
ings with Suzanne. There was na 
need seeing that she did not ques- 
tion him. And even if Elise won- 
dered, now and then, she trusted 
him, and kept her wonder to her- 
self. 

Yet this too was a painful inter- 
ruption. For events were moving 
quickly, and they both knew very- 
well that any meeting might easily 
happen to be their last. So that,, 
often as Ernest Durand came, he 
could not come as often as Elise 
wished to see him ; and though she 
tried to hide them, the tears were 
often in her eyes. 

“You hardly come to see me 
now,” she would plead, after she 
had kissed him. 

“ But you know the reason* 


48 


Cbe IReD Spell, 


sweetheart,” he would answer. “ It 
is not that I do not wish to. You 
know that.” 

There was conviction in histones, 
and she believed him. 

“ I know, Ernest. Of course you 
must be always busy.” 

“ Always, Elise, or else, you 
know, I would be always with you. 
And I am the busier because the 
time is short. It seems that the 
work of the Commune never ends.” 

The work of the Commune ! 
How she hated it ! And how she 
longed to tear him from it, and 
teach him to care as little for it as 
she cared herself ! What would the 
Commune, even if it conquered, do 
for either of them that he should 
risk his life for it ? And what was 
a principle — what was an ideal — that 
lovers should put their love by to 
consider it ? 

Those were her thoughts ; but 
she knew better than to express 


Gbe TReO Spell. 


49 


them now. For she had promised 
to help him to be brave and she 
must keep her promise. And she 
kept it till the time came when he 
had to confess to her that the dan- 
ger was at hand. 

“ Sweetheart, there is something 
that I have to tell you. It is cer- 
tain now that there will be fighting 
in the streets of Paris presently.” 

She nodded. 

“ One does not know how soon. 
Perhaps in a very few days’ time. 
In any case there will be street 
fighting — hard and fierce fighting — 
before we know whether the Com- 
mune is to stand or fall. There may 
be danger, even for those who do 
not fight. You may be frightened.” 

Frightened? Of course she was 
frightened — frightened for him ; 
and told him so. But his fears were 
for her. 

“You must not think of me, 
Elise. Think of yourself. Had I 


5 ° 


G be TCe& Spell 


not better get you a laisser passer y 
so that you can go away into the 
country ? ” 

“ Go into the country, Ernest ? 
And what shall I do in the country, 
while you are here in Paris, and in 
danger? No, I hate your Com- 
mune as I have told you ; but while 
you stay in Paris, I shall stay here 
too.” 

It was the answer he had expected, 
knowing how she loved him. Yet 
he had thought that when he rea- 
soned she would listen ; and hardly 
knew whether to be pleased or 
troubled when he found that she 
would not. 

He laid his hand on hers affec- 
tionately. “You are quite deter- 
mined, my little girl?” he asked 
again. 

“ Yes, Ernest, I am quite deter- 
mined.” 

“ Then you are brave, my little 
one — braver than I thought.” 


Gbe IReD Spell. 51 

She smiled up at him gratefully — 
so pleased to hear him say that she 
was brave. She had thought that 
to be brave one must strut about, 
carrying a pistol, and sit on barri- 
cades. 

“ But if you stay in Paris,” he 
continued, “ you must promise me 
that you will do exactly what I tell 
you. Then there may not be any 
danger for you after all. You 
promise?” 

“ I promise, Ernest. What is it 
that I am to do ? ” 

“ Something very simple. Only 
to lock yourself jnto your room, and 
stay there till the fighting is all 
over.” 

She protested: “But to stay in- 
doors when you are fighting, when 
you are in danger.” 

“ Yes, Elise. It will be harder 
for me to fight if I do not know 
that you are safe. That is how you 
must help me to be brave.” 


5 2 


Gbe 1Re£> Spell. 


He went on to warn her : 

“You know, sweetheart, that you 
cannot be safe if you go out into 
the streets. When men are fight- 
ing they do not always draw fine 
distinctions. A random bullet — an 
angry soldier — even an excited 
Communist — you understand. But 
indoors you will be safe — except for 
shells. And if shells fall, then you 
must go down into the cellar, as we 
used to in the siege, and still you 
will be safe. You promise to obey 
me ? ” 

She promised to do as she was 
told ; and then she asked for news, 
hoping that, in his fears for her he 
had exaggerated, and that there was 
a chance that there might be no 
street-fighting after all. 

His answer was not reassuring. 
He told her, with candor, every- 
thing he knew. 

The attack, he said, was vigorous, 
and the defence seemed to have 




Gbe IReD Spell, 


S3 


lost its energy. Forts and out- 
posts had been abandoned, and the 
attempt to recover them had failed. 
Dombrowski was in command. 
The Commune had no better and 
no braver soldier. But what could 
Dombrowski do when there was dis- 
cord at the Hotel de Ville, and he 
was unsupported — when he could 
not get the reinforcements that 
he asked for, and the ramparts in 
places were almost undefended? ” 

“ Then the end is in a few days, 
Ernest ? ” 

The sooner, the better, it seemed 
to her ; and the weaker the Com- 
munist defence, the more chance 
that the Communists might make 
terms for themselves and save their 
lives. 

A faint suggestion of the thought 
was in her tones and it roused Ern- 
est Durand to vehement reply. For 
the moment, the lover seemed to be 


.54 


Sbe 1 RcD Spell* 


lost in the rhetorician and the 
revolutionist. 

“ The fighting is in a few days, 
Elise, but not the end. The Ver- 
saillais will enter Paris ; there is 
no doubt of that. I say it to you, 
though I must not say it to all the 
world. But to conquer ? That is 
another matter altogether. It is 
one thing to fight the Versaillais in 
the open country, where numbers 
give them the advantage ; it is quite 
another thing to fight them in Paris, 
at the barricades. At present we 
are divided against ourselves. The 
invasion of our streets will heal our 
discords ; and when our discords 
are healed, we shall be victorious. 
Above all, with Delescluze to lead 
us, it is impossible that we shall 
not be victorious.” 

But Elise Rollin cared very little 
which way the victory went so that 
Ernest Durand came out of the 


Gbe IRcD Spell. 


55 


battle safely. She twined her arms 
round his neck, and said to him : 

“But, yourself, Ernest. You are 
not a soldier. Must you also fight ? ” 
It was her final effort to keep 
him to herself ; and he could not but 
be pleased at her insistence, and 
looked long and lovingly into her 
eyes before he answered : 

“ I am not a soldier, Elise,” he 
answered, “but I shall fight then. 
One does not need to be a soldier 
to fight at barricades.” 

And then he folded his arms 
round her, and held her to his heart 
for many minutes before he could 
bring himself to say good-bye, and 
go back to his bureau, and consult 
with Delescluze about Pere Gail- 
iard’s scheme of barricades. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Ernest Durand had spoken 
truly. The end was very near, and 
every one who knew anything at all 
knew that it was coming. Yet it 
actually came at a moment when no 
one was expecting it. 

On the afternoon of Sunday, 
May 2 ist, there was a second great 
fete given in the Garden of the 
Tuileries. In all essentials it was 
just such another fete as the one 
held there the week before. The 
shells fell a little nearer this time, 
some of them reaching as far as the 
Place de la Concorde, and the 
gaiety to close observers may have 
seemed a little forced. Still, there 
was music, and there were pretty 
women prettily dressed in their 


Gbe TReb Spell. 


57 


fresh spring costumes, so that at 
least the outward show of anima- 
tion and merriment was there. 

Elise was at the fete, and she 
came home in better spirits than 
were usual with her just then. A 
staff officer of the National Guard 
had climbed upon the platform and 
made a speech which almost reas- 
sured her. 

“ Citizens/’ he said, “Monsieur 
Thiers promised to enter Paris yes- 
terday. Monsieur Thiers has not 
entered ; he will not enter. I invite 
you to come here next Sunday to 
attend yet another concert for the 
benefit of the widows and orphans.” 

And the people cheered, because 
speeches of that sort always sound 
plausible when the band is playing. 

That was in the afternoon. On 
the evening of the same day there 
was a special sitting of the Council 
of the Commune to try General 
Cluseret for treason. Citizen Ver- 


53 


Zb c IReD Spell. 


morel was speaking. Of a sudden, 
Citizen Billioray entered, pale and 
breathless, from the adjoining cham- 
ber, where the Committee of Public 
Safety watched. 

With excited gestures, he cut 
their deliberations short. 

“ Enough of this,” he cried. “ I 
have something more important to 
tell to the Assembly.” 

Citizen Vermorel stopped. 

“ Let Citizen Billioray speak,” he 
said. 

Then Citizen Billioray stood up 
and read aloud the paper that trem- 
bled in his hand. 

“ ‘ Dombrowski to War and Com- 
mittee of Public Safety. The Ver- 
saillais have entered by the Saint 
Cloud Gate. I am taking measures 
to drive them back. If you can 
send me reinforcements, I answer 
for everything.’ ” 

Then there fell a silence, soon 
broken by quick and eager ques- 


XZbe IReO Spell 


59 


tions which Citizen Billioray could 
not answer, and the Council finished 
off its business, acquitting General 
Cluseret with all abruptness, and 
even appointing him to a command, 
while the members scattered to 
seek information for themselves. 

That was the hour when the win- 
nowing of the Communists began — ■ 
the separation of the brave men 
from the cowards. For the cowards 
went straight to their homes, or to 
hiding places where they might 
stay safely till the outcome of the 
conflict should be clear. The 
brave men prepared themselves to 
fight. 

Paris, as a whole, knew noth- 
ing as yet, and learnt nothing till 
the next morning of this invasion 
of its streets. The tocsin had not 
sounded ; the noise of cannon was 
too familiar to keep any one awake. 
So Paris slept as usual, while an 
army of ninety thousand men poured 


6o 


Cbe 1 RcD Spell. 


through the breach and established 
themselves within the walls. 

The hour when civilians should 
be called out to fight was close at 
hand, but it had not sounded yet. 
For the moment, the resistance 
was still in the hands of the sol- 
diers, who only resisted feebly. All 
through the night the troops of the 
line had pushed on, steadily driving 
the Communists before them, until 
at dawn the Trocadero had been 
seized and Muette occupied, and the 
tri-color was flying on the Arc de 
Triomphe. 

It was the hour for action ; and 
Ernest Durand knew there was no 
doubt, no hesitation now. No per- 
sonal hope or fear could stay his 
hand or clog his energy any longer. 
The Commune claimed him, and the 
red spell drew him to the fight. 

But not at once. He spent the 
night in his bureau arranging and 
sealing his papers. There were 


Gbe IReD SpelL 


61 


many of them, and the task was 
long and tiresome. Still, it was 
necessary they should be secured, if 
it were possible, against destruction. 
So he mastered his excitement, and 
sat down resolutely to work. By 
four o’clock in the morning he had 
finished it. Thoroughly wearied 
out, he crawled into his bed and 
slept for a brief space. Then, wak- 
ing some time after daybreak, he 
hastened to the Hotel de Ville, to 
place himself at the service of the 
Delegate at War. 

“ Paris must be saved, and only 
Delescluze can save it.” 

So he said to himself, and hurried to 
seek Delescluze with all his speed. 

There was no time now to think 
of Elise or of Suzanne — no time to 
be tired — no time for anything but 
to help to save the Commune. His 
blood warmed, and his pulse quick- 
ened, as he saw the signs of the ap- 
proaching conflict in the streets. 


62 


Cbe IReD Spcll< 


For at last the Parisians were 
waking up to the awful crisis that 
they had to face. The shops and 
cafes were all closed. At the win- 
dows of the houses busy hands were 
heaping up mattresses to serve as a 
screen against the bullets. Every- 
one stayed indoors except those 
who meant to fight. Groups of 
National Guards sat, with their 
muskets piled, at enormous barri- 
cades, drinking and playing picquet 
to kill the time. A troop of women 
— harridans of Belleville — withPhry- 
gian caps upon their heads, and 
their hair blown loose about their 
faces, tore furiously up the boule- 
vard harnessed to a mitrailleuse, 
the spectators cheering them madly 
as they went. A little further on a 
fresh barricade was being built. A 
mingled multitude of women and 
children were tearing up the paving 
stones and running to and fro with 


Gbe TRcb Spell. 63 

them. One of the group called to 
Ernest Durand to help them. 

“ Stop, Citizen. You must wait 
and help us build this barricade.” 

He told them who he was, and 
whither he was bound. But the 
days of discipline were over. They 
answered that behind the barricades 
all men were equal, and he was 
forced to wait and work with them 
for a quarter of an hour before they 
would let him go on his way to the 
Hotel de Ville. 

An evil omen that : but there 
were worse to follow. For at the 
Hotel de Ville also he found disci- 
pline dead, and everything in su- 
preme disorder. The square in 
front of the great building was like 
an armed camp, defended by ar- 
tillery and fortified with barricades. 
But it was an armed camp which to 
all appearance no general directed 
or controlled. The men sat, or 
stood, or lay about the ground in 


64 


Cbe TReD Spell. 


groups — most of them drinking, and 
many of them drunk. Some of 
them laughed and swore, and 
cracked unseemly jests. Others of 
more serious habit, discussed the 
situation, vowed that they had been 
betrayed, and shouted advice to 
their superior officers. Workmen 
too, in their blue blouses, and the 
wild women who fought with them, 
came and went freely in the crowd, 
clamoring for guns, for cartridges, 
for rations, and telling with ex- 
cited gestures how the battle was 
going in the parts that they had 
come from. 

Inside the building the confusion 
was even more complete. Every 
staircase, every passage, every 
courtyard, was packed with noisy, 
and for the most part wholly useless 
persons. They ate and drank, they 
even danced and sang. Sentries 
slept through the noise on their 
litters of straw, and no one waked 


Gbe IReD Spell 


65 


them. Women stood in the way 
gossiping, and no one took it upon 
himself to turn them out. 

Where then, was Delescluze ? 
And what he was doing that Paris 
had no army but this motley, 
drunken mob ? Ernest pushed his 
way impatiently through the throng 
to look for him. A soldier pointed 
to a room higher up the passage, 
opposite to that occupied by the 
Members of the Committee of Public 
Safety. The door was open and he 
entered. 

The old revolutionist — his age 
was sixty, and his hair and beard 
were white — was there, seated at 
his desk, surrounded by a great ar- 
ray of papers, and writing with 
feverish haste. His cheeks were 
thin and pale, his eyes were hollow, 
and his hands shook a little. On 
Delescluze there had fallen at the 
last the whole task of organizing 
the resistance of the Commune. 


66 


Cbe IRcD Spell. 


He had not organized it — so much 
was evident. Yet for two days and 
two nights he had not slept, but had 
stayed there in his bureau receiving 
information and despatching mes- 
sages, issuing directions, struggling, 
according to his lights, to evolve 
order out of chaos. 

Seeing Ernest Durand he rose 
from his chair and shook him by 
the hand. His hand was trembling 
— it was yet another evil augury. 

“You bring me information, Cit- 
izen Durand ?” he asked. 

“ I bring no information, Citizen 
Delescluze. I come to ask for 
orders. Where and how can I best 
serve the Commune ?” 

The answer was unexpected. For 
he was not to fight — not yet. 

“ Presently perhaps at the barri- 
cades ; for the moment, you can 
serve the Commune best by helping 
me." 

“ I am at your orders, Citizen 


Gbe IReD Spell* 67 

Delescluze. How, then, can I help 
you ? ” 

“ I am tired. I have had no 
sleep ; my brain works slowly. 
Help me to write out this proclam- 
ation.” 

Ernest Durand shrugged his 
shoulders. This was not the sort 
of energy that he had looked for 
from Delescluze, and there was a 
touch of contempt in his reply. 

“ A proclamation ? Is this a time 
for proclamations, when the battle 
is beginning in the streets ? ” 

A strange light flashed in the old 
man’s eye — a light fired by the 
memory of many revolutions. He 
laid his hand upon the young man’s 
shoulder as he answered : 

“ Citizen Durand, if you were an 
old man as I am, and if you knew 
the Parisians as I know them, you 
would also know that in Paris it is 
always the time for proclama- 
tions.” 


68 


Cbe 1 KeD Spell, 


Ernest Durand listened, but was 
not convinced. He glanced scorn- 
fully at the writing on the paper 
which Delescluze had given him. 

“And what will you decree?” 
he asked. “ Here I see you are 
decreeing heroism." 

And Delescluze replied : 

“Yes, my friend, I am decreeing 
heroism. Do not fear that there 
will be the less heroism in Paris 
because heroism has been decreed.” 

Ernest Durand sat down at the 
desk, holding the half-written proc- 
lamation in his hand ; and then 
seeing how the other’s nerves were 
shaken by his excitement, and his 
want of sleep: 

“ I repeat I am at your orders, 
Citizen Delescluze,” he said. “But 
you — you are tired. Will you not 
rest a little while I help you ? ” 

Again the feverish light gleamed 
in the old man’s sunken eyes, as he 
replied : 


Gbe ‘Rcb SpclU 


69 


“ No, no, Durand. I ask you to 
help me, but I cannot rest — not 
yet.” And added in the accents of 
a man inspired : “ What said Saint 

Just ! There is no rest for the 
revolutionist but the grave.” 

So Ernest Durand yielded and 
sat down as he was bidden with 
Citizen Delescluze, and helped him 
in the task of saving the Commune 
by inspiriting proclamations and de- 
crees. 

They wrote them with glowing 
eloquence, and in bewildering num- 
bers. There were proclamations 
calling for barricades, and proc- 
lamations authorizing requisitions. 
One proclamation said that there 
had been enough of the soldiers, 
with their gold lace and tassels — let 
them make room for the workman 
with his bare arms ; a second called 
upon the women to come out and 
fight by the side of their husbands 
and their brothers ; a third declared 


70 


Gbe IReD Spell, 


that Paris with her barricades could 
not be taken. There was a special 
proclamation to tell the soldiers of 
Versailles that their orders were 
imfamous and their disobedence 
was a duty. There was even a 
special proclamation calling upon 
all good Freemasons to rally round 
the Commune. 

And even as they wrote, the news 
kept coming to them from one 
quarter and another that the street 
fighting was going against the 
Commune. At two o’clock in the 
afternoon, General Dombrowski 
himself arrived, wounded, to report 
disaster, and then rode off on his 
black horse to endeavor to re- 
trieve it. Other messengers came, 
telling of ground lost elsewhere. 
The Porte de la Muette and the 
Porte Dauphine had been surren- 
dered ; the Versaillais were shelling 
the Tuileries from the Arc de 
Triomphe, and fighting their way 


Gbe IRcD Spell. 71 

steadily up the Boulevard Hauss- 
mann. 

Still Citizen Delescluze sat up in 
his bureau and defied the enemy 
with his proclamations and decrees, 
increasing the ferocity of his de- 
crees at the tidings of each fresh 
reverse, until at the end there was 
drafted a decree about which Cit- 
izen Delescluze and Citizen Durand 
fell out. 

It was a very famous decree — the 
most famous of them all — and the 
exact words of it were these : 

“ Citizen Milliere, at the head of 
150 fusebearers, is to set fire to all 
houses of suspicious aspect, as well 
as to the public monuments on the 
left bank of the Seine. 

“ Citizen Dereure, with 100 fuse- 
bearers, is to act in the 1st and 2nd 
Arrondissements. 

“ Citizen Billioray, with 200 men, 
is to take charge of the 9th, 10th, 
and 20th Arrondissements. 


72 


Gbe TReb Spell, 


“ Citizen Vesinier, with fifty men, 
is specially charged with the boule- 
vards from the Madeleine to the 
Bastille. 

“The citizens must concert with 
commanders of barricades to ensure 
the execution of these orders.” 

Ernest Durand read the order 
through from the first word to the 
last, and then tossed it angrily on 
the floor. 

“ I have nothing to do with that 
decree, Citizen Delescluze,” he said. 

“ And why not, Citizen Durand ? ” 
the old man demanded, hotly. 

“ Because it is an infamy, Citizen 
Delescluze.” 

There followed the inevitable 
retort. 

“An infamy ! You call it an in- 
famy? You speak the language of 
the bourgeoisie, my friend.” 

“ Is infamy then only for the 
bourgeoisie ? And do you hold that 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


n 


nothing can be infamous that a 
revolutionist may do ?” 

The old man answered slowly, 
and with more deliberation than 
was his habit. 

“ I hold this, Citizen Durand, 
that if the social revolution is to 
perish, it shall perish upon a worthy 
funeral pyre.” 

The rejoinder was as deliberate 
and as firm. 

“And I hold, Citizen Delescluze, 
that the social revolution needs no 
funeral pyre, because the social 
revolution is imperishable.” 

He did not pause, but swept on, 
carried by the fierce tide of his own 
impetuous rhetoric, as though it 
were not a single man but a great 
multitude that he was haranguing. 

“ Crush the social revolution to- 
day and it shall rise again to- 
morrow, stronger and more glorious. 
If we ourselves are not to reap the 
fruits of it, that is because they are 


74 


Cbe IReb Spell. 


reserved to be the heritage of our 
-children and our children’s children. 
Its triumph may be delayed — has 
been too long delayed — but in the 
end its triumph is assured. The 
social revolution can perish only if 
it is disgraced. And you, Citizen 
Delescluze, you would disgrace the 
social revolution.” 

Delescluze interrupted, not to 
argue, but to tell him to have done. 
Still he went on. 

“You, to whom we all looked to 
save Paris, you would destroy it. 
Therefore, I leave you. This is no 
longer any place for me. I do not 
choose to dishonor the Commune. 
I prefer to die for it.” 

It seemed for the instant as 
though the old man would have 
struck him in his wrath. And yet, 
for all the plans of outrage and de- 
struction that were maturing in his 
brain, he could not keep himself 
from respecting the sincerity of the 


Gbe IRcD Spell* 


75 


other’s indignation. Not that it 
made him waver in his resolution. 
The fever burnt too fiercely in his 
veins for that. The idea of burning 
Paris held him like a madman’s 
mania ; but he calmed himself, and 
when he answered it was without 
anger in his tone. 

“Go then, Citizen Durand,” he 
said. “You are a brave man. If 
there were more men like you in 
Paris, perhaps there would have 
been no need for this decree. ” 

Then, after a pause : 

“ Shake hands with me, Citizen 
Durand. Presently, if the need is, 
you shall see that I, who, as you 
say, disgrace the Commune, know 
also how to die for it.” 

They shook hands without more 
words and parted, and Ernest Du- 
rand made haste down the staircase 
into the square, and went to join 
the battle in the streets. 


CHAPTER V. 


The fighting was already hard 
and furious in Paris, though not so 
hard and furious as it was to be 
before the end ; and while Ernest 
Durand went out from the Hotel de 
Ville to join it, Elise Rollin sat up 
in her garret at Grenoble, and 
trembled for him and for herself — 
trembled especially for fear that his 
love for her might not endure in 
this tremendous stir of human pas- 
sion. 

For she saw some of the fighting 
with her own eyes — saw how the 
lust of battle could lay hold of men ; 
and she could understand how love 
might take wings and fly away, 
while this revolutionary frenzy 
shook their souls. 


Sbe IKeD Spell 


77 


She had not even to leave her 
room to see the frenzy of the 
struggle. 

In her own street, not twenty 
yards from the house in which she 
lived, there was a barricade hastily 
thrown up on the morning when 
the news of the entrance of the 
Versaillais came. The very sight 
of it aroused her terror. But there 
was a moment when curiosity pre- 
vailed, and in spite of her lover’s 
warning, she tripped down to look 
at it. 

Then a fresh thing happened to 
terrify her. Some of the wild wo- 
men of the quarter, noting that her 
dress was neater and better than 
their own, addressed her, saying : 

“ No idlers here ! Lend us a 
hand, Citoyenne, in carrying the 
paving stones.” 

She did not dare to disobey, but 
for awhile did as she was told in 
fear and trembling. Then one of 


78 


Cbe tReb Spell* 


the women, more truculent than 
the others, thrust a gun into her 
hand and told her she must stay 
and fight. But this time a man in- 
terfered — a strong man, who had 
pity for weak women ; there were 
some such among the Communists, 
though they were not many. 

“The conscription is only for the 
men,” he said. “ If women fight for 
the Commune they fight as volun- 
teers.” 

Then to Elise he added in an un- 
dertone : 

“ Run, little one, and hide your- 
-self away. There is no time to 
lose.” 

And Elise ran for her life, and 
scurried up five flights of stairs to 
her apartment, and locked the door 
behind her. 

For a little while she was too 
scared to do anything but cry. 
Then curiosity came gradually back, 
and was stimulated by new noises 


Gbe IReO Spell. 


79 


in the streets. She crept stealthily 
to the window, and drawing the 
curtain round her, with the vague 
idea that there would be danger for 
her if she were seen, peeped out 
timidly from behind the blind. 

Already the fighting had begun. 
She had only a broken and imper- 
fect view of it ; for all that she 
could see was the defence, while the 
soldiers who attacked were out of 
sight. But what she saw was this : 

A couple of mitrailleuses and a 
mingled mass of men and women 
defended the barricade. Some of 
the men were in uniform ; more of 
them wore the ordinary blue blouse 
of the Parisian workman ; one — the 
leader apparently — had the ordinary 
morning dress of a Parisian gentle- 
man, with the red scarf that signi- 
fied official rank wound round it. 
The mitrailleuses shrieked, the mus- 
kets rattled, the smoke darkened 
the air and made everything indis- 


So tTbe TReD Spell. 

tinct. But through the dimness 
Elise could still see the fighters 
load and fire, and reload and fire 
again ; and above the roar of the 
guns she could hear the angry 
shouts, first of defiance and then of 
pain, as shot after shot from the 
unseen enemy struck home. 

For a space of three-quarters of 
an hour she saw the battle stub- 
bornly contested. At one moment 
it would seem that the Communists 
were on the point of flight. Then 
the sudden reinforcement of some 
half dozen fresh combatants would 
put new heart into them, and they 
would fight with more ferocity than 
ever. One man, more daring than 
the others, leapt on to the top of 
barricade, and waved a red flag de- 
fiantly. A bullet struck him and 
he fell. One of the wild women, 
screaming wild blasphemies, scram- 
bled up to take his place ; one of 
the men seized hold of the skirt of 


Cbe TCet> Spell. 81 

her dress and dragged her down 
again. And all this time Elise 
could see nothing of the Versaillais, 
and only knew that they were near 
because she heard their firing, and 
saw that the defenders of the barri- 
cade were being killed and wounded. 

Then suddenly, as she looked and 
listened, she heard loud cheers, and 
cries of “Vive la Republique ” an- 
swering the cries of “ Vive la Com- 
mune,” and saw the soldiers of the 
Commune break and run in all di- 
rections, shouting the inevitable 
“ nous sommes trahis .” She saw 
what had happened. The barricade 
had been turned by means of some 
of the by-streets, and the Commu- 
nists found themselves assailed 
upon two sides at once. Panic 
seized them and they scattered. 
The more desperate of them fell 
upon the men of the line regiments 
and fought them hand to hand. 
The rest ran for refuge into the 


82 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


houses whose doors had been left 
open by their orders. 

There was a strange fascination 
in the spectacle. Her old shudder- 
ings at the sight of bloodshed 
seemed to have left her, and she 
looked down, like one entranced, 
watching the uneven battle, the 
pitiless butchery in the doorways. 
Then a fresh dread came upon her. 
Suppose the fighting did not finish 
at the doorway. Suppose flight and 
pursuit and bloodshed went on up 
the staircase from one landing to 
the next. Suppose — she ran across 
to her own door, and tried it ner- 
vously to make sure that she had 
locked it fast, and then threw her- 
self upon the bed, and hid her head 
in the pillow’, sobbing in hysterical 
dismay. 

She lay thus for a few minutes, 
and, as nothing happened, compos- 
ure began slowly to return to 
her. 


Gbe IRcD Spell. 83 

Then she heard footsteps — heavy 
and deliberate footsteps — on the 
stairs. Gradually they came nearer, 
and presently a boot kicked at her 
door, and a rough voice cried : 

“ Open ! Open at once in the 
name of the law, or we break down 
the door.” 

Still shaking with terror, she 
made haste to do as she was bid, 
and a sergeant and two soldiers of 
the Versailles army entered. See- 
ing them, she was still more fright- 
ened. For what reason could they 
have come, she asked herself, unless, 
it were to kill her ? 

But they had only come to search 
for Communists who might be tak- 
ing refuge there. No rigorous quest 
was needed to assure them that 
there was none. The girl’s manner 
was evidence enough of that. So 
they barely made a pretence of 
searching the room, and the ser- 
geant smiled a little at her terror. 


8 4 


Cbe IRcD Spell* 


“ There is nothing to be afraid of 
now, little one,” he said, genially. 
“ We have cleared out this ‘ canaille .’ 
They won’t come back to frighten 
you any more.” 

And so saying he went out, re- 
membering even to shut the door 
after him, and marched his men 
down the stairs again. 

That was all the fighting that 
Elise actually saw. From begin- 
ning to end it could not have lasted 
longer than an hour. Afterwards 
she knew only what she heard. 

Yet she heard a good deal. The 
sergeant — his name, he told her, 
was Sergeant Boisjoly — was left 
with a file of men to keep order in 
the Rue de Nice after it was 
cleared, and Sergeant Boisjoly, 
though a disciplinarian, was not 
morose, and was pleased enough to 
gossip with her when his duties let 
him. 

So Elise got many scraps of news 


Cbe TReb Spell 


85 


from time to time. She heard of 
the battle at the Church of the 
Trinity, where the Communists had 
shut themselves up as in a fortress, 
and artillery had to be fetched to 
batter down the door. She heard 
of the fierce resistance at the Tuil- 
eries and the Place de la Concorde, 
and the bloodshed in the Mad- 
eleine, and the unexpected capture, 
almost without resistance, of the 
Butte Mont-martre. 

And all the news she got was 
news that frightened her. For the 
struggle, Sergeant Boisjoly told her, 
was getting more stubborn as the 
hours went on. The outcasts of 
the Faubourg Saint Antoine had 
scented battle, and were aroused. 
All day long they had been stream- 
ing down in companies two hundred 
strong, with bands playing and the 
red flag flying, to take their orders 
from the Hotel de Ville. They 
would fight, these men, the sergeant 


$6 Zb e IReb Spell, 

said. No chance that they would 
surrender as the National Guard 
surrendered at La Muette. A pity 
Trochu, with that precious plan of 
his, hadn’t marched them out to 
fight the Prussians. But there — 
that was Trochu’s business, and not 
his. His business was to obey 
orders, not to stand about talking 
politics. 

Thus Elise got on the best of 
terms with the brave sergeant from 
the other camp. But all the things 
he told her were of little account if 
be could not tell her the one thing 
that she wanted to know. At last 
she felt that she could trust him 
and, summoning her courage, asked 
him timidly : Had he any news — 
did he know by chance what had 
happened to a Monsieur Ernest 
Durand, Member of the Council of 
the Commune. 

“ I know nothing of him, little 
one,” he answered carelessly ; but 


ftbe IRcO Spell. 87 

when she repeated the question, 
his curiosity was wakened. 

“ I think you have a special inter- 
est in this Monsieur Durand ? ” 

“ A very special interest,” she 
answered shyly, and he understood. 

“ Ah, then, you are a Communist. 
You also are a Communist.” 

“ One need not be a Communist, 
monsieur,” she said, “ to want news 
of one’s lover when he is in danger.” 

Communist or Republican, there 
clearly was no need to take her 
political opinions seriously. So 
Sergeant Boisjoly answered kindly : 

“ But I have heard nothing — not 
even a rumor. If I hear anything 
presently, be sure that I will tell 
you.” 

He kept his word, and even went 
out of his way to try and find the 
news she wanted. But there was no 
news to be gathered — only vague 
and contradictory reports. Some 
said that Ernest Durand was dead ; 


88 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


others that he had been taken 
prisoner, and marched off to Ver- 
sailles. Others, again, professed to 
have seen him fighting on the left 
bank with Wroblewski. It was 
quite clear that no one knew really 
anything at all. So Sergeant Bois- 
joly kept the conflicting stories to 
himself, and merely said : 

“You must have patience, little 
Communist, and wait. And if any 
one comes to you with rumors, you 
must not believe them, for rumors 
are more often false than true. 
They said that Delescluze was dead, 
and Delescluze still writes his 
proclamations at the Hotel de Ville. 
When I know anything for certain I 
will come and tell you, but mean- 
while you must be patient.” 

“ But it is hard to be patient, 
monsieur,” she answered, “ when 
one’s lover is in danger. Are you 
quite sure you have heard noth- 
ing?” 


Sbe IRcb Spell. 89 

“ Nothing, little Communist, or I 
would have told you. Be patient, 
then, and remember what I say — 
that if you hear rumors, you must 
not believe them." 


CHAPTER VI. 


She said the sergeant’s words 
over to herself : — 

“ Remember what I say — that if 
you hear rumors you must not be- 
lieve them.” 

This meant that there were ru- 
mors — rumors that Sergeant Bois- 
joly would not repeat to her. But 
Sergeant Boisjoly was kind, and if 
they had been good rumors he 
would have told her of them. Then, 
since he had them, they must be 
bad rumors. It was rumored, per- 
haps, that Ernest Durand was dead. 

The sergeant said that she must 
disbelieve the rumors. How could 
she disbelieve them if she did not 
know what they were ? She must 
find out for herself, and not be sat- 


£be IReb Spell. 91 

isfied with getting news at second 
hand ; she must go down into the 
street, and into the cafes, and find 
out what she could. 

Putting on her hat and jacket she 
went out, and walked into the shop 
of a marchand de vin and listened to 
the talk there. The place was full 
of soldiers, with a sprinkling of 
sympathizers, who showed their 
sympathy by insisting on paying 
for what the soldiers drank, and all 
the talk was of the battle in the 
street. 

“ They tell me Assy is a prisoner,” 
said one man. “ In the dark he rode 
into the midst of our men in the 
Rue Beethoven, and they had taken 
him before he knew what was hap- 
pening.” 

“And Dombrowski is dead,” ex- 
claimed another. “ He was killed 
on a barricade in the Rue Myrrha.” 

“ And Milliere is dead, also,” 
cried a third. 


9 2 


Cbe IReD Spell. 


“ Is that Milliere the journalist ? ” 

“ The same. He who wrote the 
articles about J ules F avre. General 
Cissey took him on the south 
bank and shot him with his own 
hand.” 

And others contradicted the story 
told with so much circumstance, 
saying that the man whom Cissey 
had shot was not Milliere but some 
other Communist, and others again 
told other stories of the fight — some 
true, some false ; but Ernest Du- 
rand’s name was not heard at all. 

Elise got bolder when she found 
that no one noticed her in all this 
babble and confusion, and, pres- 
sently, she asked one of the soldiers 
who seemed to her to look less fero- 
cious than the others, if he knew 
anything. 

“ Nothing, mademoiselle,” he an- 
swered. “ But we will soon see if 
there is any news.” 

He banged his glass upon the ta- 


£be IRcb Spell* 93 

ble to demand attention, as he 
shouted : 

“ Say, then, you others. Is Du- 
rand dead also ? Does anyone know 
what has happened to Durand ?” 

“ Durand,” asked one of them. 
“ Who is he then, this Durand ? 
And who is it that asks for news of 
him?” 

Elise replied, in nervous ac- 
cents : 

“ He is a Member of the Council 
of the Commune, monsieur, and it 
is I, who was to be his wife, who 
asks for news of him.” 

Then there was trouble. A big 
burly drunken fellow said some- 
thing about spies and Communists 
which frightened Elise. But the 
soldier to whom she had first spoken 
took her part. 

“ Sit down,” he shouted to the 
other. “ Mademoiselle’s politics are 
neither your affair nor mine, and 
you shall not question her about 


94 


Gbe TCeD Spell, 


them. If you have the news she 
asks for tell it. If not, be silent.” 

The drunken man subsided. Be- 
cause Elise was pretty, and looked 
helpless, public opinion was against 
him. The others tried to remember 
whether they had heard anything. 

“ Was it not said that he was 
killed,” said one man, “ fighting 
with Dombrowski, in the Rue 
Myrrha ? ” 

“No, no,” said another. “Not 
killed — only wounded. And not 
with Dombrowski, but with Brunei.” 

A third cried : “You are wrong. 
Durand is neither killed nor 
wounded. He has been all the 
while at the Hotel de Ville. I have 
it from a prisoner who had seen 
him there.” 

Sergeant Boisjoly was right. 
There was nothing to be learnt 
from stories so various and con- 
tradictory — nothing to be done 
but to hope that the last and best 


Gbe IReb Spell. 


95 


alternative was true. So Elise 
thanked the tellers of them, and 
stayed a little longer, listening to 
the talk, and then went home again. 

But the impression that the talk 
had left upon her brought her al- 
most to despair. This street-fight- 
ing was so much worse — so much 
more bloody — than anything she 
had looked for. What she had 
looked for — in common with Mon- 
sieur Thiers and the Versailles gen- 
erals — had been just a day or two’s 
sharp fighting, followed by sudden 
and complete collapse. But now 
she had seen and heard enough to 
know that whatever happened to 
the Commune, it would not collapse. 
It would be crushed, no doubt ; the 
invading forces were so strong that 
they could not help but crush it. 
But there would be no surrender — 
not even when everything was lost. 

Nor was that the worst. The 
atrocities that are inevitable in civil 


96 Gbe *KeD Spell* 

war were now beginning. At first 
the Versailles generals had taken 
many prisoners, and sent them off 
between files of soldiers to head- 
quarters. Now, furious at the fe- 
rocity of the resistance, they were 
beginning to take fewer prisoners, 
and such as did fall into their hands 
would generally be straightway 
stood up against the nearest wall 
and shot. 

Such were the stories that Elise 
had heard, while she sat among the 
soldiers, listening to their talk ; and 
remembering them, she trembled. 
For she knew well that Ernest Du- 
rand would go to meet this fury, 
and it seemed certain that no one 
who faced it could escape from it. 
All through the evening the dread- 
ful thought possessed her ; all 
through the night it kept her sleep- 
less. 

Was he wounded, as one of the 
soldiers had told her ? She found 


Cbe IReb Spell. 


97 


herself hoping that she had heard 
the truth. Then there was, at least, 
the chance that he might be lying 
somewhere safely out of harm’s 
way ; whereas if he were still un- 
hurt and fighting, every hour that 
passed only added to his peril. 

There was another thought that 
hurt her still more cruelly. 

“ If only I knew that he were 
thinking of me through it all, just 
as I think of him ! ” 

But how could that be ? She had 
seen how the frenzy of the fight 
possessed the whole souls of men 
who, till the last few days, had done 
nothing for the Commune except to 
talk and spend its paper money. 
And Ernest had not only talked for 
the Commune, but worked for it, 
believing that it would regenerate 
the world. How then should he 
resent the frenzy, and find time to 
think of her, when the existence of 


98 Cbe IReD Spell, 

the Commune trembled in the bal- 
ance ? 

“ No, no,” she sobbed. “ If the 
Commune were finished he would be 
mine and only mine. I know it. 
But now, there is no hope — no hope 
at all. For the Commune will only 
finish when all the Communists are 
killed.” 

And out of this thought sprang 
yet another — the thought of that 
other woman who loved Ernest 
Durand, and also loved the Com- 
mune, and had vowed that she 
would fight for it. 

“ Who knows ? Perhaps at this 
very minute, she is with him at the 
barricades.” 

She could not help the thought, 
or the sudden pang of jealousy that 
came with it. It was no jealousy 
of the ordinary sort. She had no 
lurking fear that he might love that 
other woman. It was only her cour- 
age that she was jealous of — a cour- 


Gbe IReb Spell* 


99 ' 


age that she knew to be for her so 
hopelessly impossible. 

Oh, what a picture ! A man and 
a woman, vowed to a great cause, 
and going out to the barricades to 
die for it together. The dramatic 
splendor of it could appeal even to 
a little shop girl in those dramatic 
times. To think that she might 
have done this thing, and so have 
kept him with her to the last. And 
then, again, to think that she was 
afraid to do it. 

“Yes, yes, ” she sobbed, “I am a 
coward, and if he thinks of me at all, 
it must be only to think that I am 
a coward.” 

But then they had told her that 
he was wounded. It was only one 
story among many that she had 
heard. Yet, somehow or other — 
why, she neither knew nor asked 
herself — that was the story that had 
burnt itself into her mind. He was 
wounded, and she could not come 


100 


Gbe 1Re£> Spell, 


to him. If she had been brave, as 
that other woman was, she would 
have been with him, and being with 
bim, might have saved him. 

But she had not dared. She had 
been so much afraid that he had had 
to tell her how to hide herself away ; 
and now — who knew? — perhaps 
- that other woman was in her place. 

““A coward, and he knows I am a 
coward, ” she sobbed, and sobbing 
at last fell asleep. 

And still in her sleep, which 
was only brief and fitful, the same 
thoughts pursued her, the same pict- 
ures haunted her. The one bit of 
street-fighting that she had seen 
came back to her in her dreams. 
Only, this time, the leader in the' 
black coat and the red scarf was 
Ernest Durand, and the woman who 
tried to climb on to the barricade 
and wave the red flag in the face of 
the enemy was Suzanne Touffroy. 
They seemed to look up towards her 


Gbe iReb Spell. 


ior 


window and recognize her, and de- 
ride her because she was afraid to 
come down and join the fight. 

Then the scene changed. She 
saw Ernest Durand with blood- 
stained bandages about his forehead 
laid out upon a couch in a room in 
some strange quarter of the town, 
Suzanne Touffroy sat by him, bend- 
ing over him, ministering to his needs 
and she seemed to hear Suzanne’s 
voice saying to him, triumphantly: 

“ You see then it is I, not your 
Elise, who nurses you. Your Elise 
feared the bullets, and did not dare 
to come.” 

It was very vivid. She seemed to 
hear the words as clearly as though 
they were spoken into her ear, and 
calling out in her sleep she cried, de- 
fiantly : 

“ No, I am not a coward, Ernest, 
and I will come to you for all the 
bullets.” 

The sound of her own voice woke 


102 


Gbe IReb Spell. 


her. For a few moments she still 
lay half-dazed upon her bed, regard- 
less of the noises in the street. She 
was so used to noise that a little 
more or less of it could make no 
difference to her. 

Then waking more completely she 
gradually became aware of a great 
red glare lying across the window, 
gleaming luridly through the cur- 
tains and the blinds, and lighting up 
every corner of her room. She 
jumped up quickly and ran to the 
window, and drew back the curtains 
and looked out. 

A fire ! And not one fire only, but 
many fires on both banks of the 
river, and in all quarters of the city. 
The fiercest blaze of all was at the 
Tuileries. The palace, where kings 
and emperors had held their court, 
was a glowing furnace of flames 
overhung by heavy canopies of pitch 
black smoke. But great as the fire 
was there, it was hardly greater than 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


103 


the other conflagrations. Here, 
there, and everywhere — from the 
big buildings in the Rue Royale, from 
the great government offices beside 
the Seine — long tongues of flame 
leapt up towards the sky. In the 
streets crowds were gathering, eag- 
erly inquiring of each other where 
the danger was, while people thrust 
their heads out of every window 
shouting and gesticulating. The fire- 
men of Versailles, hastily summoned, 
galloped to their work of rescue. 
Shells thrown by the big batteries 
of Chaumont and Perela Chaise fell 
everywhere, kindling fresh confla- 
grations where they burst, and a 
strange and sickly smell — the smell 
of petroleum — was in all the air. 

Elise leant her hands upon the 
window sill and looked out upon 
the awful spectacle. But all her 
terror was gone now, driven out by 
the stronger emotion that possessed 
her. As her waking thoughts had 


io 4 Cbe IReD Spell. 

pursued her in her dreams, so the 
thoughts of her dreams stayed with 
her now she was awake, and she 
murmured : 

“ No, Ernest, I am not a coward 
any more, and I am coming to you 
— coming to look for you until I 
find you.” 


CHAPTER VII. 

The truth was as Elise had hoped 
and feared. Ernest Durand was 
wounded. Suzanne Touffroy was 
with him when he got his wound. 

“ I shall fight with you — on the 
same barricade.” 

So she had promised him ; and 
when the fighting came she kept 
her word. 

It was not hard. Giving no 
thought to her, he made no effort 
to mislead her, or escape from her. 
Matters of more moment occupied 
his mind. So she learned, without 
trouble, that he was at the Hotel 
de Ville, and stationed herself in 
the square outside it, waiting for 
him. 

The noise and the confusion 


106 Gbe TReD Spell. 

lasted all day long. The routed 
soldiers came there to be rallied, 
and the wounded to be safe, and 
the recruits from the workmen’s 
quarters to ask for arms and get 
their orders. Company after com- 
pany was marched off, shouting and 
singing, to the battle. But Suzanne 
joined none of them, though many 
would have been glad to have her. 
She waited patiently till Durand 
came out, and then she followed 
him. 

He did not see her, and at first 
she did not speak to him. For, if 
she spoke, there was always the 
chance of a rebuff, and that she did 
not wish to court. Better that she 
should reveal herself to him sud- 
denly, in the hour of danger, fight- 
ing for the Commune, by his side. 
So she followed doggedly, well 
pleased that he should not see her 
yet. 

He, on his part, had certainly no 




Gbe IRed Spell. 


107 


thought for her. Of Elise, indeed, 
he had often thought, even during 
these days of unceasing strain and 
unrelieved excitement. The thought 
that she was in danger weighed 
upon him, and the words that she 
had spoken to him in the garden of 
the Tuileries — “ Then there will be 
no afterwards for you and me,” — 
had come back painfully into his 
mind, even when it was full of 
other things. But of Suzanne Touf- 
froy, and of her wish to die with 
him at the barricades he had not 
thought at all ; and now he was 
thinking only of the Commune — of 
the chances there still might be of 
saving it, and of the growing fear 
that it would be disgraced. 

He was leading a company of a 
hundred men or so to reinforce the 
resistance in the northern streets. 
Some of his men were in the uni- 
form of National Guards ; more of 
them were ragged workmen come 


ic8 XZbe IReD Spell. 

down at the call of the revolution 
from the slums of Saint Antoine to 
fight the “ capitalist,” the enemy of 
all their houses. 

They could not march — these 
citizen soldiers of the Commune ; 
they straggled all over the street, 
and made no pretence to hold them- 
selves upright. A rabble — that 
seemed the only word for them. 
Yet it was a word that wronged 
them, for they would fight, and die 
fighting, rather than run away. 
One could gather that from the way 
they chorused the “ Chant du De- 
part ” as they went along. Pres- 
ently they were to prove it, in a 
fashion that should leave no room 
for doubt. 

Some of them recognized Suzanne, 
and greeted her with the cry of : 

“Vive la Capitaine ! Vive la 
belle Capitaine ! ” 

She answered with “ Vive la Com- 
mune ! ” and fell into line with the 


Gbe IReD Spell. 109 

hindmost, adding her clear contralto 
to the chorus that they never ceased 
to sing. 

Still Durand did not see her ; 
the rough work before him claimed 
his whole attention. But her im- 
patience grew. She wanted him to 
know that she was with him. So, 
at last, she ran up, and touched him 
lightly on the shoulder, saying : 

“ You see. We are going to fight 
together, after all.” 

Accident or design ? It did not 
matter to him, and he merely an- 
swered : 

“ Good. The Commune needs all 
the defenders it can find to fight for 
it.” 

A cold reply. The Commune had 
not helped to win him for her yet. 
Presently, perhaps, but certainly 
not yet. And, meanwhile, she must 
not give him any chance to quarrel 
with her ; but if she talked, it must 


10 


Cbe TRcD Spell, 


be indifferently, as a mere friend 
might talk. 

“What news?” she asked. “Are 
things going as badly as I hear ?” 

“ We have lost ground,” he said. 
“ Perhaps we shall recover it. We 
are here to try.” 

“And Delescluze?” she contin- 
ued ; “ has he finished yet with his 
proclamations ? ” 

This touched a note that made 
him readier to talk. He told her 
how he had sat all day with Deles- 
cluze, and at the end of the day had 
quarrelled with him because he 
wanted to disgrace the revolution. 

She listened, throwing in a ques- 
tion here and there. Once, she 
remembered, at a certain political 
meeting in the church of St. Eus- 
tache, one of the orators — a woman 
— had spoken significantly of petro- 
leum, and the use that might be 
made of it. She had applauded then, 
and nothing had happened since to 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


nr 


make her change her mind about 
petroleum. But she could not let 
such a discordant thought find 
utterance now, and when he had 
finished, simply said : 

“ Good. Then we will fight to- 
gether. You will take me for your 
recruit ? ” 

And he replied : 

“ Why, yes. One could hardly 
refuse so willing a recruit in these 
days.” 

So they fought together at the 
barricades ; and there is no need to 
describe the fighting, because all 
street fights are very much alike. 

Only, this time, there were no 
fluctuations in the struggle. Some 
of the barricades might hold out 
more stubbornly than others ; but 
the time came when each of them 
was taken. For, when a barricade 
proved formidable to direct assault, 
the enemy would enter the houses 
on each side of the street, and tun- 


1 12 


Gbe TReb Spell. 


nel through the brickwork from one 
house to the next, until they turned 
the defence, and so put the Commun- 
ists to flight. So they battled on, all 
through the afternoon and evening 
— the women fighting as bravely as 
the men — always losing ground, 
though never losing heart. And, all 
through the struggle, Suzanne 
fought on by Ernest Durand’s 
side, happy to be with him, and 
careful to say no word to break the 
spell that circumstances had woven 
for her. But Ernest Durand paid 
no heed to her ; and hardly even 
seemed to know that she was there. 

At last night fell, and they made 
their bivouac in the open street in 
a darkness lighted by the fitful flare 
of burning houses that the shells 
had set on fire, and in a silence broken 
only by the noise of the cannon 
and the voices of the sentries posted 
in their front challenging the 
passers-by. An attack might come 


Cbe IRcD Spell, 


13 


at any moment, and it was necessary 
to be prepared. So mattresses 
were requisitioned, and fetched out 
from the houses, and laid upon the 
ground to serve as need might 
settle, either for beds or barricades. 

Tired as they all were, there were 
but few of them who slept ; and 
La Capitaine had less desire for 
sleep than any. The rest seemed 
good to her only because it gave 
her time to think. 

All sorts of memories came back 
to her, as she lay there with the 
soldiers of the Commune, in the 
narrow roadway, looking up towards 
the stars. Unhappy memories, 
most of them, and memories to 
be ashamed of. She saw things 
more clearly in the chill and quiet 
hours when the pulse slackens, and 
the tide of human strength is at its 
lowest. Yes, yes, she understood 
the gulf that lay — a gulf of her own 
making — between her and this lit- 


Gbe TReD Spell. 


114 

tie bourgeoise whom Ernest Durand 
preferred to her. She had been 
wrong — she had presumed, when 
she had dared to hope. 

And yet Ernest Durand had once 
been kind to her, and the thought 
of his kindness was the one shining 
point among many dreadful memo- 
ries, and it was hard to think that 
this had come between them, and 
that, even when she fought beside 
him for the cause he loved so 
dearly, she could not touch his 
heart. 

Still, even if he would not love 
her, it was good to be so near him. 
She stole closer and closer as the 
night went on, and as he grew 
drowsy she even dared to slip her 
hand into his. He let it stay there, 
and she fancied that he pressed it. 
It was only fancy, but it made her 
happy. 

Then suddenly came an alarm, a 
crash, a great confusion, shrill cries 


Gbe IReD Spell* 


”5 


of pain, and loud shouts of defiance, 
as men grasped their arms and ran 
to the barricade, supposing that an 
assault was imminent. 

It was a shell from the Mont- 
martre battery that had fallen near 
them, and a splinter of it had struck 
Ernest Durand upon the forehead. 

Now was her chance ; now she 
could help him ; now she could do 
more to save him than his little 
bourgeois girl. 

And first she must make haste 
and get him to some safe place be- 
fore worse happened. 

She called to one of the National 
Guards. 

“ Citizen Louvet ! ” 

“ Citoyenne ! ” 

“ Citizen Durand is wounded. 
Help me to take him away from 
here before the Versaillais come.” 

“ But where, Citoyenne ? Into the 
house here, for example ?” 

She replied impatiently : 


n6 Gbe TReD Spell. 

“ Into the house ? When you 
know that the Versaillais will be 
here presently to search all the 
houses, you ask if you shall take 
him into the house.” 

“But there is no other place, 
Citoyenne.” 

It was not her habit to be gentle 
of speech when she was excited. 

“ Are there no other houses, 
blockhead?” she cried. “Help me 
to take Citizen Durand to my own 
apartment in the Rue des Etrangers, 
which is close to Pere la Chaise.” 

It was not certain that she would 
be obeyed. There was a beginning 
of grumbling, especially among the 
men from Saint Antoine who had 
no respect for leaders, but stickled 
for equality. One of them began 
gruffly : 

“ If all the wounded soldiers of 
the Commune are to be carried to 
the Rue des Etrangers ” 

But Suzanne stopped him. 


XTbe TReb Spell* n 7 

“ Be silent,” she said, imperiously. 
“ Who spoke to you about all the 
soldiers of the Commune ? I said 
only that Citizen Durand should be 
taken to the Rue des Etrangers, 
and I will be obeyed. Why do you 
call me * La Capitaine ’ if you will not 
take my orders ? Do as I tell you, 
Citizen Louvet.” 

They looked at her dubiously for 
a moment, and then yielded. Citi- 
zen Louvet lifted Ernest Durand in 
his arms and followed where Su- 
zanne guided him, and the others 
refrained from interfering, and one 
or two of them even shouted “ Vive 
la Capitaine ” after her as she went. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


These were the things that had 
happened while Elise lay awake on 
her bed and wondered, and Ernest 
Durand had already been carried to 
the house in the Rue des Etrangers 
when she looked out of her window 
at the flames, and, mastering her 
fears, resolved that she would go 
and search for him. 

She had no plans except the 
vaguest. Her one idea was to get 
into the quarters of the city that 
the Communists still held, trusting 
that there she would be able to get 
some more precise direction. So 
she dressed herself by the light of 
the flames whose red glow filled the 
room, put on her jacket and her hat, 
and stepped down into the street. 


XTbe IReD Spell. 119 

Her friend, Sergeant Boisjoly, 
was still on guard there, and he saw 
and stopped her. 

“ Where are you going, little 
Communist?” he asked. 

“ I am going to look for him, 
monsieur,” she answered. 

“ But where ? ” 

“ Everywhere, monsieur, until I 
find him.” 

“And you are not frightened ?” 

“ Yes, I am frightened,” she said, 
“but I am going to look for him all 
the same.” 

He wondered very much. What 
could this gentle child have in com- 
mon with those black Communist 
scoundrels who had set Paris in this 
blaze ? He could not understand 
it. But, after all, it was her own 
affair. So he shrugged his shoul- 
ders and gave her the only direction 
that he could. 

“You must cross the river,” he 
said, “ by the Pont d’Alma. Higher 


120 


Cbe IReD Spell. 


up it is possible that they will not 
let you cross.” 

“And then, monsieur?” 

“Ah, then, I cannot tell you. It 
will depend. I think it is in Belle- 
ville that you will find most of the 
Communists, who are not killed. 
But how you are to pass our lines 
and get to Belleville, I do not 
know. It will be hard.” 

“ I mean to try, monsieur. I 
have no choice,” she answered. 
“Good-bye, and thank you. You 
have been very kind to me.” 

“ Good-bye, little Communist,” 
he said. “ Good luck go with you,” 
and he waved his hand, cheerily 
wishing her God-speed. 

And so on the lurid morning of 
the 24th of May, Elise conquered 
her cowardice, and set forth alone 
to seek her lover in the burning 
city. 

Moving as one in a dream and 
guided only by her single dominant 


£be IReb Spell, 


1 2 1 


desire, she hardly noticed the horror 
of the things she heard and saw. 
Even afterwards, when they came 
back to her in a measure, she could 
have given no connected and or- 
derly account of them. There re- 
mained only as it were the confused 
memory of a fearful night-mare — 
the vague impression of bursting 
shells and burning houses, of over- 
turned cannon and battered barri- 
cades, of the shouting of soldiers, 
the rattle of musketry, the scream 
of mitrailleuses, of slippery pools of 
blood upon the pavements, and 
dead bodies lying unregarded in the 
streets. These things and a few 
salient pictures of especial horror 
branded indelibly on her mind were 
all that she recalled. 

At first, indeed, her passage was 
easy and undisturbed by any start- 
ling circumstances. The quarter 
where she lived was solidly held by 
the Versaillais, and even the wild- 


122 


Cbe IRcD Spell* 


est of the wild women who went 
about by order of Citizen Delescluze 
throwing petroleum bottles into the 
cellars had not ventured there. So 
she walked along as quickly as the 
crowds permitted over the Bridge 
of Alma to the quays. 

There there were no crowds, for 
the shells were falling, and the 
prudent stayed indoors or had 
already sought refuge in some safer 
place. Broken lamp-posts and shat- 
tered kiosks, and the dead bodies 
of men and horses, showed that 
there had been fighting there a lit- 
tle while before, but now the fight- 
ing was over and the place de- 
serted. 

Close to the bridge, but hardly 
sheltered by it, a solitary old man 
sat fishing — the inevitable Archi- 
medes of this time of tumult. But 
Elise did not think of the story 
of Archimedes when she saw him, 
for she had never heard of it. She 


Gbe TRcb Spell. 


123 


merely wondered in a dazed and 
foolish way whether the man had 
caught anything, and then just as 
idly wondered at herself for feeling 
such a curiosity at such a time. 

She did not pause, however, but 
pressed on, dodging the shells, and 
following the long line of the quays. 
Nearing the palace of the Tuileries 
she again found crowds — firemen 
fighting the flames, soldiers keeping 
order, curious spectators pressing 
as near as they were allowed to 
see the awful conflagration. She 
paused for a moment almost invol- 
untarily to gaze at it, and then turn- 
ing up a side street struck into the 
heart of the city, where the battle 
was still raging furiously. 

That was the time when she began 
to lose count of her movements. 
Her wanderings took her every way 
in turn. Blocked in one direction, 
she would choose another, and 
weary of walking, still pushed for- 


124 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


ward to that vague, indefinite goal 
that she had set before her. Pene- 
trating at one moment almost to the 
front of the Versaillais line she 
would be roughly ordered back the 
next by soldiers who were too busy 
with their work of slaughter to have 
ears for her questions or entreaties. 
And so she wandered, resolutely, 
but for a long while, hopelessly, 
seeing things that were to linger in 
her memory for ever afterwards. 

In one street a troop of prisoners 
passed her — National Guards, civil- 
ians, women, and even children. 
They were handcuffed and marched 
bareheaded — filthy and miserable 
to look upon. The spectators 
jeered and insulted them as they 
went by ; the soldiers prodded them 
with their bayonets when they 
flagged. Well-dressed women, from 
the great bourgeois palaces in the 
Boulevard Haussmann, ran out into 
the road and struck them, crying : 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


12 s 


“ That is for my husband whom 
you locked up at Mazas,” or : 

“ That is for my son whom you 
made to fight for you in the trenches 
at Asnieres.” 

Elise looked at them with tears of 
pity in her eyes. Might not Ernest 
Durand pass her at any moment, a 
helpless victim of the same bru- 
tality ? 

But he was not in any of the 
gangs that passed her, and as she 
went further, other and worse hor- 
rors met her eyes. She saw Com- 
munists dying for their faith. And 
it was not enough for them to die 
bravely — they must die dramat- 
ically as well. 

There was one old man — a grey- 
beard of the revolution — whom the 
soldiers, just as she was passing, 
flung in their passion upon a heap 
of mud, swearing that they would 
shoot him there. Before they could 
fire he sprang to his feet again. 


126 


Cbe TReb Spell, 


“ I have fought bravely,” he cried, 
“ and I have the right not to die in 
the mire.” 

And then they respected him, and 
let him stand up upon his feet to 
die. 

Somewhere else in the midst of a 
row of prisoners stood out against 
a wall to be mowed down by the 
mitrailleuse there was a woman car- 
rying in her arms a child of some 
three or four years of age. Prob- 
ably the soldiers had not seen the 
child ; doubtless the mother might 
have saved its life for the asking. 
But she disdained to ask. 

“Show these wretches that you 
know how to die upright,” she said, 
and stood the little one beside her 
to await the volley. 

All these things Elise saw in her 
long quest, and presently she was 
the witness of a scene of which the 
pathos moved her even more. 

It happened that she had come up 


Gbe 1Ret> Spell. 


127 


one of the streets just after the cap- 
ture of a barricade. Here, too, 
some prisoners had been taken, and 
among them was a boy of twelve, 
who had served the guns as bravely 
as his elders. He was to die. The 
order had gone forth from head- 
quarters that all Communists taken 
with arms in their hands were to be 
shot forthwith without formality. 

The little lad, with the smoke of 
the powder black upon his chubby 
face, stepped forward and spoke to 
the officer, saluting him. 

“ Monsieur,” he said, “ this house 
here is where my mother lives. Be- 
fore I am shot I ask your leave to 
take this silver watch of mine to her, 
so that at least she may not lose 
everything — when I am dead.” 

The officer was moved to pity. 

“ Go then, my boy, be quick,” he 
said, and let him run, never doubt- 
ing that he had seen the last of him. 

But it was not two minutes before 


128 


Cbe TReb Spell. 


the child was back again. Again 
saluting the officer, he said : 

“ Eh bien, monsieur, now I am 
ready. You see that I have kept 
my word,” and then prepared to 
take his place beside the other pris- 
oners. 

But a great frown gathered on the 
colonel’s face, and Elise heard him 
swear a great oath, and saw him 
seize that boy by the two shoulders 
and roaring at him, “ Stay, then, 
with your mother till I come to 
fetch you, idiot,” hurl him violently 
back with a kick to speed his prog- 
ress into the doorway from which 
he came. 

But though Elise saw these things, 
she hardly heeded them. It was 
only afterwards that she found the 
pictures in her memory, burnt there, 
never to be forgotten. For the mo- 
ment her one thought was to get to 
Belleville and find her lover ; her 
only immediate purpose to pass by 


Gbe IRefc Spell. 


129 


some means or other through the 
Versaillais lines. 

It was hard ; and for a long time 
it seemed impossible. They were 
lighting everywhere throughout the 
blazing city, and the space between 
the attacking and defending armies 
seemed to be raked everywhere with 
shot and shell. Elise was almost 
despairing, when at last she found 
a way. 

She had asked the soldiers again 
and again to let her through, but they 
had always sent her back ; some- 
times, when she persisted, even 
threatening to arrest her. Then she 
saw an Englishman — one of the 
many war correspondents who were 
following in the track of the troops. 
At the time of the first siege she had 
heard all sorts of stories about the 
courage and resource of English war 
correspondents, and the thought 
struck her that perhaps this man 
might help her if he chose. She 


130 Cbe IReO Spell. 

mustered her courage and went up 
to him, and told him what she 
wanted. 

“ Impossible, mademoiselle, quite 
impossible,” was his answer. 

But she persisted : 

“ Would it be quite impossible, 
monsieur, if it were quite necessary ? 
I will tell you what I am afraid to 
tell the soldiers — that my lover is 
with the Communists, and that I 
must go to him.” 

He answered kindly : 

“In that case, mademoiselle,” he 
said, “ I will only say that it is very 
dangerous. There is a way — the 
way by which I myself have just 
been obliged to come here from 
Belleville, but you will have to cross 
a street that is under fire.” 

“ Please show me the street, mon- 
sieur.” 

He bowed, as though it were only 
an ordinary direction that he was 
giving her. 


£be IReb SpeU. 131 

“ This way then, mademoiselle.” 

He guided her into a house, and 
through it to a yard behind. The 
yard abutted on another street, on 
the opposite side of which was a 
narrow winding passage. Up and 
down the street the Communists 
and the Versaillais were firing at 
each other fitfully. 

“ Are you afraid ? ” the war cor- 
respondent asked. 

“ No, monsieur, I do not dare to 
be afraid.” 

“ Then wait for a moment till the 
fire slackens. Now is your chance. 
Quick. Run for your life.” 

She ran like a hare. A bullet 
whizzing past her head flattened 
itself against a lamp-post. But she 
was unhurt, and for the moment 
out of danger. Following the pas- 
sage to the end she found herself 
at last safely among the Com- 
munists. 

But even then her troubles were 


I 3 2 


Gbe mo Spell. 


not ended. In the parts of Paris 
that resisted, the turmoil was even 
greater than in the parts that had 
been taken. The shells rained more 
thickly, for the Versaillais batteries 
were stronger and better served. 
Fires were as numerous, if not so 
big, for the Communists tried to 
burn each quarter of the town as 
they abandoned it. Order and dis- 
cipline were lost ; the army had 
become a mob that pillaged when it 
was not fighting ; commands were 
given by anyone who chose to 
assume authority, and disobeyed by 
everyone who chose to disapprove 
of them. 

Night fell, and still Elise wan- 
dered to and fro, hither and thither, 
now in the black shadows of the 
by-streets, now in the bright glare 
of the blazing houses. Ever and 
again they stopped and questioned 
her, but she told them her errand, and 
they let her go again. Once only 


Cbe Reb Spell, 


133 


there was trouble, when some Belle- 
ville workman tried to detain her, 
saying roughly when he heard her 
story : 

“ You seek Durand ? But Durand 
is a traitor. Durand said that Paris 
should not be illuminated.” 

For it was thus, as “ our illumin- 
ations,” that the Communists spoke 
jestingly of the burning of their city. 

But Elise answered gently and 
pleadingly : 

“ I know nothing of these things, 
monsieur ; I know only that I seek 
my lover, who, they tell me, has 
been wounded, fighting for the 
Commune.” 

That struck the chord of senti- 
ment, for the Communists were 
sentimental to the end ; and the 
man relented, and let her pass. 

So the lurid night passed, and the 
dawn broke as luridly. Elis-e was 
hungry, and faint, and footsore. 
She could have sat down on a door- 


134 


Zbc IReD Spell. 


step, like a tired child, and cried 
herself to sleep. But still her 
love sustained her with unnatural 
strength, and she dragged herself 
wearily, but restlessly, from Belle- 
ville to Menilmontant, and from 
Menilmontant back again to Belle- 
ville. And still the answer to all 
her questions was the same. 

“ Where is Durand ? I cannot 
tell you. Who knows where is any- 
one in these days ? ” 

Then another thought sprang in 
her mind. Surely Delescluze would 
know what had happened to him, 
and Delescluze no doubt would be 
easier to find. So with her limbs 
aching and her strength failing her, 
she set herself to search for Deles- 
cluze. 

But she was not to have speech 
with Citizen Delescluze, though she 
got news of him and found him. 

He was at the Chateau d’Eau they 
told her, and she trudged there 


Hbc *KcD Spell. 135 

wearily and slowly. And when she 
got there this is what she saw. 

In front of the Place du Chateau 
d’Eau there was an abandoned bar- 
ricade. The fusilade that rained 
on them from the housetops oppo- 
site had driven the Communists 
back from it, but the Versaillais 
had not yet come up to plant the 
tri-color among its debris. A little 
way behind it stood a group of 
Communist leaders. Among them 
Elise saw Citizen Delescluze and 
hurried to get near him. 

Then it was that of a sudden, 
and without a word of warning, 
Citizen Delescluze stole quietly 
away from the little knot that were 
debating the fortunes of the battle, 
and advanced alone towards the 
broken barricade. None of the 
others at first saw what he was do- 
ing, or was even aware that he had 
left them. Then Citizen Jourde 
and Citizen Johannard looked up, 


i 3 6 


Gbe IReD Spell 


and seeing him shouted to him to 
come back. He half turned his 
head and waved his hand to them 
in answer, and then walked on again 
with tottering and feeble steps. 
Then they knew that Delescluze 
at last despaired of the Commune, 
and thought that his hour had come 
to die for it, and they stood still, as 
men in a trance, and watched him. 

He carried a red flag in his hand, 
and the red scarf of his office was 
knotted round his waist. The 
marksmen aimed at him from the 
housetops, but their shots fell wide, 
and he still walked on unswerving 
and unharmed. At last he reached 
the barricade. Slowly — for he was 
very old and very weak — he clam- 
bered up on to the top of it, and 
rose upright upon his feet, waving 
the red flag above his head. For a 
moment his friends saw him stand- 
ing there amid the rain of bullets, 
lifting his left hand as though to 


Gbe IReD Spell. 137 

screen his eyes from the setting sun 
that flamed full upon his face and 
lit it as with the glory of a martyr’s 
halo. And then they saw him die 
for the Commune as he had wished 
to die. 


CHAPTER IX. 


So she had come to the Place du 
Chateau d’Eau too late to have 
speech with Delescluze. 

Still, Citizen Jourde, or Citizen 
Johannard might have the news she 
wanted. She asked them, though 
without much hope that they would 
help her, and Citizen Jourde re- 
plied : 

“ Durand is wounded. He has 
been taken to a house in the Rue 
des Etrangers, No. 36. I passed 
him when he was being carried 
there. There was a woman with 
him — she whom they call ‘ La Capi- 
taine.’ ” 

So it was as she had feared. Su- 
zanne Touffroy was with him, tak- 
ing the place that ought by rights 


Gbe 1 ReD Spell. 


139 


to have been hers. A cruel thought 
that, and worse thoughts hung on 
it. Suppose, when she came, Su- 
zanne Touffroy refused to yield her 
place to her. Suppose there were a 
wrangle in the sick room — that 
would be worse even than the hor- 
ror of her two days’ wanderings 
through Paris. 

With such thoughts besieging her, 
she turned her face to Pere La 
Chaise. 

It seemed an endless journey, 
though it was not really far. She 
dragged herself rather than walked 
along the streets, for she could not 
have run now even if his life had 
rested on her running. Her strength 
seemed to have gone from her when 
at last she knew her goal and was 
in sight of it. Once or twice she 
was obliged to sit down in a door- 
way and rest herself. But not for 
long. She soon got up and la- 
bored on again, until at last she 


140 £be IReO Spell. 

read the words “ Rue des Etrang- 
ers ” written up at the corner of one 
of the streets to the south of Pere 
La Chaise. In five more minutes 
she had found the house that Citi- 
zen Jourde had told her of, and en- 
tered it. 

An old woman— the wife, as it 
seemed, of the concierge — came, 
with an odor of garlic, out of the 
kitchen. 

“Madame seeks someone?” she 
asked. 

Elise told her. She replied : 

“ Then I cannot let you pass. 
The other said that no one was to 
enter.” 

“ What other ? ” 

“ La Capitaine — she who brought 
Durand here to her apartment, 
when he was wounded.” 

“ But I must enter. I tell you I 
have business with M. Durand, and 
I must go to him.” 


XLbe IReb Spell. 141 

The old woman shrugged her 
shoulders. 

“ I know nothing of that, madam. 
I have my orders.” 

It was quite clear what she 
wanted. Elise drew a five-franc 
piece from her purse, and pushed it 
into the old woman’s hand, saying : 

“ But it is as I tell you, and I 
must go to him. Please show me 
the apartment.” 

The bribe attained its end. 

“On the fourth floor, the door 
that faces you at the head of the 
staircase.” 

And then, as Elise passed out of 
hearing, she chuckled to herself : 

“ Five francs from each of them. 
That is as it should be. Now they 
may fight for him, and we will see 
who wins.” 

But while she mumbled, Elise had 
already toiled on up the stairs, 
clinging to the balustrade, and 
found the room she sought. It was 


142 


Gbe IReO 5pcU< 


in her mind that Suzanne would re- 
ceive her violently, and her nerves 
troubled her as she pulled the bell- 
rope. 

There was a pause for a few min- 
utes. Then the door opened, and 
she stepped in quickly, fearing to 
find it slammed on her, and said : 

“ I believe Monsieur Ernest Du- 
rand is here. I wish to see him.” 

But there was no scene, no wran- 
gle such as she had looked for. 

For Suzanne knew very well that, 
if there were any trouble, Ernest 
Durand might easily hear it and 
come limping out to interfere ; and 
that would be a sorry way to end 
the happiness that she had found 
in being near him. She had bound 
him to her now by ties of gratitude. 
Surely he must be nearer to loving 
her than he had ever been. The 
charm could not last — there was no 
hope of that. All the same, there 
must be no violence to break it 


Zbc IReD Spell, 141 

suddenly. So, though she hated 
Elise for coming to invade the new 
happiness that she had found, she 
kept down her hatred, and spoke 
courteously, and almost kindly. 

“ I know you,” she said. “Your 
name is Elise. You also know me,. 
I think?” 

But Elise had no inclination to be 
friendly with the woman who had 
supplanted her, though it was only 
for an hour. She answered coldly 1 

“No, mademoiselle, I do not 
know. Will you please tell me 
where I shall find Monsieur Du- 
rand ? ” 

To her astonishment, Suzanne 
still kept her temper. 

“Wait here then a moment, while 
I tell him,” she said, and disap- 
peared. 

Then she returned, and led the 
way into the room where Ernest 
Durand lay upon his bed ; and once 
again, after the long days of agony 


144 


Z be iReD Spell. 


of battle, the lovers were together, 
and Suzanne knew that, for all that 
had happened they were lovers still. 

The wound, it seemed, was not so 
very serious. He looked very weak 
and ill as he lay there with the 
bandages about his head. But he 
was in no danger — was, in fact, re- 
covering, and could already talk a 
little. So Elise came over and sat 
down in the chair beside his bed 
and kissed him and held his hand ; 
and Suzanne did not dare remon- 
strate when she saw her place 
usurped calmly, and, as it were, by 
one who had a right to it, but sat 
sullenly by the window, now watch- 
ing them and now looking out into 
the street, but always nursing her 
deep and bitter sense of wrong. 

That was on the evening of the 
Thursday. From then until late in 
the afternoon of the next day the 
two women who loved Ernest Du- 
rand continued in the room with 


Gbe 1Re£> Spell. 


US 


him. They never quarrelled ; they 
hardly even spoke. Each in a way 
was afraid of the other, and each 
felt constrained and embarrassed by 
the other’s presence. But in the 
presence of the sick man they both 
covered up their feelings, and tried 
not to show their embarrassment 
even by their manner. He needed 
both their ministrations, and while 
he suffered, there was no place for 
jealousy. 

There was a time when Elise had 
to let herself sleep a little, and then 
Suzanne took her seat by the bed, 
and was happy. But so soon as 
Elise woke Suzanne yielded the 
place to her again. Elise did not 
ask for it, but her manner claimed 
it. Durand wished her to be by 
him. They both felt that, although 
he had not said so ; and, therefore, 
Suzanne yielded of her own accord, 
fearing that if she did not he might 
be appealed to, and decide against 


46 


Gbe TReb Spell, 


her. Only, she would not leave 
them. She had saved his life, she 
told herself ; and that, surely, gave 
her the right to stay with him. 

So the two women watched with 
him through the night, and in the 
morning it no more tired or troubled 
him to talk. But as his strength 
came back, they both saw that his 
personal life was less and less to 
him, and that the red spell held him 
more and more. He would forget 
the Commune, Elise had told her- 
self, now that he was ill, and she 
was nursing him ; and yet, when he 
woke, his first thought was to ask 
for news of it. How was the fight 
going? And did the people still 
hold out ? 

They sat and told him — each of 
them in turn — what they knew about 
the battle in the streets. He could 
understand them when they spoke of 
that, though everything else seemed 
dim and hazy to him in his fever. 


Gbe IReO Spell. 


147 


Suzanne spoke first; and her elo- 
quence aroused Elise to a strange 
sense of jealousy. For Suzanne had 
enthusiasm to inspire her, and spoke 
with the deliberate purpose to 
impress. Moreover, she had a 
great story to tell — the story of the 
death and burial of General Dom- 
browski, of which the concierge 
below, who was of the National 
Guard, had told her — and she knew 
how to draw the picture so that it 
should seem to stand out before her 
listened eyes. 

“ It was at Pfcre La Chaise,” she 
said; “and they buried him in the 
midst of the uproar of the battle. 
For below the houses were burning, 
aud the smoke hung over them, and 
the fighting was in every street, and 
even in the cemetery itself the shells 
fell, and the air was deafened by 
the noise of cannon. But they 
carried his body there, with the red 
flag thrown upon it for a pall, and 


148 Zhc TRefc Spell* 

the National Guards stood by it 
bare-headed while the coffin was 
lowered into the grave. And then 
Citizen Vermorel stood up and 
spoke to them. ‘ There he lies,’ he 
said, ‘there he lies who was accused 
of treachery. The first of us all, he 
has given his life for the Commune, 
and we — shall we not give our lives 
also ? Let us swear, then, that we 
will leave here only to follow his 
example.’ ” 

She spoke in burning tones, with 
flashing eyes and quick excited 
gestures. He felt the magic of it. 
It stirred his revolutionary fever, as 
it was meant to, and made him long 
to rise up from his bed and gain 
the battle before it should be too 
late. 

But he was too weak as yet. All 
that he could do was to press her 
with his eager questions. 

“Was Vermorel dead ? ” he asked. 


Gbe TReb Spelt. 


149 


‘‘And what news of Varlin, of 
Ranvier, of Delescluze ? ” 

Then Elise spoke, and told him 
how she had seen the death of 
Delescluze ; and it was Suzanne’s 
turn to be jealous. 

Elise was not so eloquent as she 
had been. She told her story seem- 
ing to be conscious of the drama of 
it, without a single sign of enthusi- 
asm for the cause for which her lover 
had faced death. But while she told 
it she leant forward as Suzanne had 
not dared to do, and held her lover’s 
hand caressingly, and mixed up her- 
self and her own troubles, with the 
stories, as though these were af- 
ter all the things that really mat- 
tered. 

“ It was while I was looking for 
you, Ernest,” she began, “ and just 
before I found you. No one could 
tell me where you were, and I 
thought perhaps Monsieur Deles- 
cluze would know. So I went to 


Z be TRcD Spell, 


* 5 ° 

seek out Monsieur Delescluze that 
I might ask him.” 

From this beginning she went on 
to tell him of the dreadful sight that 
she had seen at the Place du Cha- 
teau d’Eau, and his eyes lighted, and 
he murmured : 

“ Ah, he was a brave man was 
Delescluze. He has disgraced the 
Commune ; yes, but he was a brave 
man, none the less.” 

She talked on, telling him of the 
other things which she had seen and 
heard in her wanderings through the 
streets, ignoring the other woman’s 
presence, and talking just as though 
she were alone with him. 

She told him of the burning of Paris 
and its attendant horrors; of the 
petroleuses, who slunk from house to 
house to do their wicked work ; of the 
wild women who ran out to meet the 
soldiers, affecting to welcome them, 
and then offering them poisoned food 



v 


Cbe mb Spell. i si 

and wine. Once more, when she 
paused, he muttered : 

“ It is terrible — too terrible. 
They disgrace the Commune. Where 
are the leaders of the people, that 
they allow them to disgrace the 
Commune thus ? ” 

And, as he spoke, he made an ef- 
fort, as though he would leave his 
bed to join them, and fell back 
again exhausted. 

But Elise sought not to excite him 
but to calm him, and when his 
strength began to return to him a 
little, she drew closer, and spoke of 
things more personal and more inti- 
mate. It was nearly over now, she 
said, this fighting, and he must not 
think of it any more, because he was 
too ill and weak. But when he was 
well again, then they would be quite 
happy, and there would be no more 
politics for her to be jealous of. 
Were they not always happy when 


152 Zbc IReb Spell. 

there were no politics to come be- 
tween them ? 

Thus she prattled on, paying no 
more heed to Suzanne’s presence 
than if she had been miles away- 
He, on his part, was too weak to ans- 
wer more than a sentence here and 
there. 

But the reaction had come after 
his excitement, and he was tired, and 
it soothed him to have her there, 
holding his hands, and whispering 
her love into his ears, and he lis- 
tened, gratefully and smiling, and 
forgot, as she did, that they were 
not alone. 

Suzanne felt the slight, but suf- 
fered it in silence. Perhaps though 
Elise was as gentle as she herself 
was violent, there was something in 
Elise’s manner that subdued her — 
some tacit assumption of superiority 
of which she felt the justice even 
when she most resented it — the nat- 
ural advantage which the civilized 


Zbe IReD Spell* 153 

woman has over the wild woman 
wherever the primitive rule of vio- 
lence may not prevail. 

So at first Suzanne sat and listened 
to them sullenly, with the cruel feel- 
ing that Ernest Durand did not want 
her laying painful hold upon her 
mind. Then, almost unnoticed by 
them, she got up and moved back to 
the window, and sat there nursing 
her anger and her resentment, tell- 
ing herself in her bitterness that he 
had driven her away from him, 
though in truth he had not spoken 
an unkind word to her. And there 
she stayed as sullenly as ever, sub- 
missive, but not resigned, with an- 
gry thoughts chasing each other 
through her brain until she could en- 
dure no more. Then with a sudden 
impulse she sprang to her feet, and 
caught up her revolver from the 
table, where she had placed it, and 
fixed it in her belt, exclaiming : 

“ Enough of this. I go to 


*54 


Cbe TReD Spell. 


the barricades. They want me 
there.” 

They looked up startled, for they 
had both forgotten her. But she 
ran to the door, and had disappeared 
from the room before they had time 
to answer, whether to approve or 
protest. 


CHAPTER X. 


They were alone at last ; and 
while the forces of the Commune 
were being rolled back, street by 
street, towards Belleville, and 
Charonne, and Menilmontant, Elise 
watched by Ernest Durand’s bed in 
the upper chamber of the house in 
the Rue des Etrangers, to the 
south of the Pere La Chaise. 

A serene happiness was in her 
mind. Suzanne had gone out of his 
life forever, and even the Commune 
should not dispute him with her 
any more. She had only to stay 
there and nurse him through his 
sickness, and Suzanne should trouble 
her no more, and the Commune 
blow by and be forgotten, and a new 
life of happiness and quiet spring 


Cbe IRcD Spell. 


156 

up for them out of its ashes. If 
only the Commune would die 
quickly — if only the Versaillais 
would make haste and finish it 
before his strength came back to 
him, bringing with it the renewed 
desire of battle ! She knelt down 
by his bedside, and prayed that this 
might be. 

But his strength was coming back 
to him — coming fast ; and the 
Commune seemed an unconscion- 
ably long time in dying. A thought 
came to her. There was no one 
but herself to nurse him, or attend 
to him. Suppose she were stub- 
born and refused to give him food. 
In that way she might keep him 
weak so that it would be impossible 
for him to go down and fight until 
there should be no Commune left to 
fight for. Only she was afraid. 
For he was sick and needed food, 
and if he did not have it he might 
die. So she did not dare do this, 


Cbe IReD Spell* 


iS7 


but ministered to all his wants, 
trembling the while to see him 
growing stronger and stronger 
every hour. 

She had not won him yet. The 
red spell was coming back and lay- 
ing hold of him again ; and she 
must fight the red spell with every 
weapon in her armory. 

No doubt of that ! For the noise 
of the battle was always in his ears, 
and grew nearer and louder as the 
time slipped on, rekindling the 
revolutionary fever in his brain. 
He raised himself in his bed and 
listened eagerly. 

“ Hark ! ” he said. “ Out there 
they are dying for the Commune. 
And I ” 

“ And you are very weak and ill, 
Ernest, and must lie still, and let 
me nurse you till the Commune is 
all over.” 

She bent over him, and kissed 
him as she spoke ; and for a while 


53 


Gbe IRcD Spell. 


she quieted him. But only for a 
while. For the uproar of the con- 
flict grew, and his impatient rest- 
lessness broke out again. 

“Listen again,” he said. “It is 
getting nearer now. And I — who 
was a leader of the Commune — 
what right have I to be hiding 
myself away up here, while the peo- 
ple whom I led are dying for it ? ” 
This time it was harder to calm 
him. She almost had to hold him 
down in his bed by force, 

“ I will not let you go,” she said. 
“You are too ill and weak. You 
know that you could not help the 
Commune if you went.” 

It was true, and he knew it to be 
true. But at least he must have 
news. Unless news were brought 
to him, he could have no peace at all. 

“ Then find out for me how it is 
going,” he cried. “ I cannot bear 
to lie here and not know what is 
happening to the Commune.” 


ZTbe IReD Spclb 159 

She obeyed, and went out to look 
for news, locking the door behind 
her as she went, in the fear that he 
would get up and escape from her 
while she was away. 

But she was not absent long. In 
little more than half-an-hour she 
was back with him again, with terri- 
ble stories to report. 

Her face was pale — she could 
hardly speak for her excitement. 
But she had found a weapon — a 
weapon with which, it seemed to 
her, she could not fail to drive the 
red spell out of him for ever. For 
she knew things now that must dis- 
gust him with the Commune — 
things that must convince him that 
no honest man could fight for the 
Commune any longer. 

“ It is too dreadful, Ernest,” she 
began ; “ so dreadful that I can 
scarcely tell you.” 

His question showed that he half 
divined her meaning. 


i6o Gbe IReD Spell. 

“But you must tell me,” he said. 
“They still disgrace the Com- 
mune ? ” 

“ Disgrace the Commune ? ” she 
repeated. “They do more. They 
disgrace humanity itself.” 

“ Tell me then ; tell me, Elise,” 
he urged. “ What is it that they 
have done ? ” 

She was eloquent enough now. 
It was only by her eloquence that 
she could save him from himself. 

“ What is it that they have 
done?” she cried. “You should 
ask me rather what it is that they 
have not done ! They have set fire 
to Paris — that you know already, 
and forgive them for it, and would 
still go down and fight for them. 
And I now tell you that they have 
done murder — cruel and cold- 
blooded murder — in the open 
streets.” 

“ Not murder, Elise. You must 
have been deceived ; they must 


Ube IRcb Spell. 161 

have told you wrong. I know every 
leader of the Commune. They are 
men who will fight, and who will 
die — as Dombrowski has died, as 
Delescluze has died — but they are 
not men who will murder.’' 

“ But I tell you, Ernest, that they 
have murdered. There is no doubt 
of it at all. I have it from Pierre, 
the concierge below. It is not half 
an hour since he came back here, 
and stripped off his uniform of the 
National Guard, saying he would 
not fight for the Commune any more. 
That I might get news for you I 
questioned him, and he told me of 
the murders that your Communists 
have done, first at La Roquette, and 
afterwards in the streets of Belle- 
ville.” 

He began to understand. 

“ At La Roquette ? The hos- 
tages ? ” he muttered. 

“ Call them hostages if you like. 

I do not know. All I know is that 


1 62 


Cbe iReb Spell 


they were the prisoners of the Com- 
mune — the Archbishop Barboy, the 
Abbe De Guerry, the President 
Bonjean, and some others. They 
were good men who in all their lives 
had done no harm to anyone. But 
because they had been beaten at 
the barricades your National Guards 
marched down to La Roquette and 
told these men that they must die. 
They gave them no time even to 
prepare themselves for death. 
Thank God that they were good 
men, prepared to die no matter 
when. But your National Guards 
jeered at them as they were being 
marched down to the place of exe- 
cution in the courtyard, and when 
two of the men, for very shame at 
their own wickedness, knelt down 
before the archbishop and asked 
him to forgive them for what they 
did, the others ran at them, and 
kicked and struck them, and threat- 
ened that they would shoot them 


Gbe IfteD SpeiU 


163 

also. That is why I tell you that 
your Communists are murderers.” 

It was telling — she felt sure that 
it was telling. But she would not 
pause or give him time to interrupt. 
For she had more to tell — more 
dreadful stories to disgust him with 
the Commune. 

“ But that is not all. That is not 
even the worst that your Commun- 
ists have done. They have also 
murdered the Dominicans who were 
arrested. They let them loose, tell- 
ing them that they were free, and 
must make haste to get away, and 
then the traitors shot them down 
like rabbits as they ran. And then 
there were more murders — the 
cruellest of all — in the Rue Haxo, 
in Belleville. Not great men like 
the archbishop and the abbe, but 
the common people, gens d’armes, 
shopkeepers, private citizens, whose 
only crime was that they did not 
love the Commune. But the Na- 


Cbe lRet> Spell, 


164 

tional Guards took them up to 
Belleville, and made them go into a 
yard in the Rue Haxo. The crowd 
followed — as many of them as could 
enter — and pushed the prisoners up 
on to a piece of raised ground 
against the wall. There were some 
in the crowd who protested, and 
tried to save the prisoners, but the 
others yelled at them, calling them 
'traitors, and bidding them be silent. 
/And then they fired at the men — 
-volley after volley — until they all had 
fallen, and where they had fallen 
they trampled on the bodies and 
struck at them with the butt ends of 
their guns, like so many madmen 
drunk with blood.” 

At last she paused, breathless, 
and Ernest Durand did not speak. 
The truth was too terrible, and he 
knew not what to say. 

But Elise perceived the advantage 
that this truth had given her, and 
followed it. Her manner changed, 


*£RcD SpelL 165 

and she bent over him and whis- 
pered to him gently : 

“ Pierre was right, Ernest. Was 
not Pierre right, having seen these 
things, to say he would not fight 
for the Commune any more? ” 

He seemed to hesitate, and she 
said the words again. This time he 
answered faintly and slowly : 

“Yes, Elise. Pierre was right, 
and you are right. Now that the 
Commune has done these things, I 
also feel that I cannot fight for the 
Commune any more.” 

She felt that she had conquered ; 
and, for a little, her trouble was 
lifted from her mind. He would 
not fight for the Commune any 
more ; and surely the Commune 
must be over, before he could have 
time to change his mind. 

Yet it was hard for her to see 
that, though he had promised this, 
the fever still was there, and that 
he could not forget the Commune 


i66 Gbe IReD SpelU 

even when he knew it was dishon- 
ored. 

He still would talk of it, though 
there were so many better things to 
talk of. 

“ They are mad,” he said ; “ there 
seems no limit to their madness. 
But they are brave. They do not 
desert the Commune like Rochefort, 
they do not slink away and hide 
themselves like Felix Pyat. Though 
they have disgraced the revolution, 
they are not afraid to die for it.” 

But Elise had little sympathy for 
that sort of courage. 

“ Let them die, then,” she an- 
swered. “ Having killed others who 
had done no harm to them, it is 
only just that they should die.” 

But still he dwelt on their one 
virtue, saying : 

“Yes, but they are brave, Elise. 
Are they not brave seeing that if 
they liked they might escape, and 
yet they stay to die ? They love 


Cbe IRed Spell. 167 

the Commune, and they will not 
survive it — at least one honors them 
for that.” 

In his excitement he made her 
repeat the words after him, and say 
that she, too, honored them for 
that. It was but a little thing to 
say, if only he would not follow 
their example — and she had his 
promise, and when she pressed him, 
he repeated it. 

So they sat and talked together 
through the night, and almost till 
the dawn. But they both were 
weary — Elise especially was weary 
— and at last Ernest Durand made 
her lie down for awhile upon the 
couch and sleep. 

Her sleep was deep and dream- 
less. For all the things that had 
happened to her in the last four 
days had worn out her strength, 
and now that Ernest Durand’s 
promise to fight no longer for the 
Commune had set her mind at rest, 




1 68 Gbe IRcD Spell. 

and the strain upon her nerves was 
lessened, the sleep she needed came 
to her naturally and quickly. 

Ernest Durand slept also, but his 
sleep was shorter and more troubled. 
The white dawn shimmering through 
the window woke him, and the roar 
of the batteries at Pere La Chaise 
and the Buttes Chaumont thun- 
dered in his ears, and filled his brain 
with an unending whirl of restless 
reverie. 

“ It is the death agony of the 
Commune,” he said to himself, and 
shuddered. 

The death agony of the Commune, 
with all the high hopes that had 
had their birth with it ! And while 
it was dying, he lay there within 
earshot of its last struggle, letting 
himself be nursed back to life 
again ! He went on, still harping 
on the old refrain — the courage of 
these men who would not cease to 
fight for it until it ceased to live. 



TZbe IReO Spell, 


169 


“Yes, they are brave, and they 
would not survive the Commune. 
One honors them — even Elise hon- 
ors them — for that. And if one 
honors them, then should not those 
Communists be held to be dishon- 
ored who have let themselves sur- 
vive the Commune l And will it 
not be said, and rightly said, that 
these men who have burnt Paris, 
and murdered the hostages at La 
Roquette, and massacred the gens 
d’armes in the Rue Haxo, had more 
courage in the end than I had who 
was ashamed to see the social revo- 
lution polluted with those crimes ? ” 

It was the red spell returning ; 
and in his weakness, with the fever 
of his wound, it had gripped him 
with a greater force than ever. He 
sat upright in his bed, and his 
fingers clutched fiercely at the 
blankets. 

“ Never,” he cried, “ never. I 
have no right to fall away from a 


170 


Gbe TReb Spell, 


good cause because bad deeds have 
been committed in its name. The 
cause claims me still. My life be- 
longs to the Commune, and it shall 
not be said of me that I was afraid 
to pay the debt. Afraid to pay it ? 
But I wish to pay it. What is life 
that I should wish to go on living 
after liberty is dead ? ” 

What was life ? Might not life 
with Elise mean happiness enough 
to console him for the loss of a 
cause that he had loved ? Perhaps 
it might — if only he had turned 
back in time. But not now. It 
was too late, and he had gone too 
far. For if he lived now, it could 
only be to be a prisoner in New 
Caledonia, or Cazaune ; and what 
happiness could such a life contain 
either for him or her? 

“ No, no. I can’t stop now. I 
must go on until the end.” 

As he spoke he had already got 
up from his bed, and begun to dress 


<Ibe IReb Spell* 


171 


himself in silence, but with nervous 
and impetuous haste. 

He was still weak ; he could only- 
keep his feet with difficulty. But 
he drank a little cognac, and that 
steadied him and gave him strength 
while he put on his clothes and 
fastened his red scarf of office over 
his coat. 

Elise was still sleeping on the 
couch beside him. He stood be- 
side her, looking into her pale tired 
face, thinking of all the things that 
might, and of the terrible awaken- 
ing that would presently be hers. 
She would wrong him in her 
thoughts and call him cruel, when 
she knew that she had found him 
only to lose him again so soon — to 
lose him after she had been so brave 
for him. And for him too it was 
cruel, though she would never know 
it. Only the red spell drew him to 
the battle that was already lost, and 
he must follow. 


172 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


He wanted to take her in his arms 
and press her to his heart, but did 
not dare. For that would be to 
wake her, and she must not wake, 
she must not know till afterwards. 
He dared not even wait to write a 
line telling her how his love for the 
Commune had taken him away from 
her. She had hated the Commune, 
and she would not understand. But 
he knelt down beside her where she 
lay, and softly touched her forehead 
with his lips, and whispered a fare- 
well below his breath. 

“ Good-bye, Elise ! Good-bye, 
my sweetheart ! I did not know 
before how much I loved you, and 
now that I do know I have to leave 
you. The Commune that you hate 
calls me, and I must not disobey.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


How is the fight going? And 
where do we fight now ? ” 

Ernest Durand asked the ques- 
tion of a man in a filthy blue blouse 
stained with powder, who hurried 
by him in the Rue des Etrangers, 
and the answer was : 

“ The fight goes badly. All the 
left bank is lost to us ; and Villette 
too is taken. Look there, and see 
how its docks are burning. We 
make our last stand now at the 
Buttes Chaumont and at Pere La 
Chaise.” 

But the Buttes Chaumont were 
far away, and Pere La Chaise was 
near at hand, so that it was to the 
battle in the graveyard that Ernest 
Durand turned his steps. 


174 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


“ At Pere La Chaise you say ? 
Good. And you too are going 
there ? Good also. Let me lean on 
your arm, my friend, for I am weak.” 1 

The Belleville workman gave his 
arm to the Member of the Council 
of the Commune and helped him up 
the hill, telling him as they went all 
that he did not know already of the 
fortunes of the struggle. 

“ So you have been wounded ; 
and you did not know. Ah ! well, 
our men have been fighting bravely. 
Our barricades are taken, but we 
build other barricades behind them. 
Only the Versaillais are stronger 
and drive us from every barricade 
in turn. Still, they will have their 
hardest fight of all at Pere La 
Chaise. For after Pere La Chaise is 
taken there is nowhere for us to fly 
to, and if we do not beat them there 
w r e die.” 

“And who leads the people? 
Who is in command there ?” 


Gbe TReD Spell, 


175 


“ My faith, I cannot tell you. 
We have lost our leaders. Some of 
them are dead and some of them 
have run away to hide themselves. 
But our people fight on without 
their leaders. One does not need a 
leader to fight for the Commune at 
Pere La Chaise.” 

Thus far they were in sympathy ; 
but not when Ernest Durand spoke 
of those murders at Roquette, and 
in the Rue Haxo, which had weighed 
upon his mind, and made him say 
that he would not fight for the 
Commune any more. This only 
brought a flood of rhetoric upon 
him — a loud profession of revolu- 
tionary faith. 

“ It is the vengeance of the peo- 
ple on the bourgeoisie. One does 
not do these things in cold blood 
you think — that is true. Neither 
does one make revolutions in cold 
blood. But how shall you expect 
us to act as men act in cold blood 


176 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


when the Versaillais are butchering 
our people in the streets? You 
heard how they shot Milliere — 
kneeling to ask pardon of society 
for what they called his crimes. 
Well then, shall such things as that 
be done, and shall we sit by with 
our hands folded, and do nothing 
to retaliate ? I think not. No, no, 
my friend. If it is thus that you 
speak of the justice that the people 
have done upon its enemies you 
should come to Pere La Chaise with 
the Versaillais and not with us.” 

But there was no time for angry 
argument, and Ernest Durand an- 
swered : 

“ My friend, it is because I love 
the Commune that I would not see 
it stained with crime. . . . But, 
also because I love the Commune I 
am coming now with you to offer 
my life for it at Pere La Chaise.” 

So the quarrel between them got 
no further, and they walked on in 


Cbe IReD Spell. 


177 


silence till they reached the place 
where the last desperate survivors 
of the revolution waited to give 
battle to the soldiers of the line in 
the burial ground upon the hill. 

It is a weird place at any time — 
this cemetery of Pere La Chaise. 
They call it the City of the Dead, 
and from the distance you would 
surely think it was a city rather 
than a place of tombs. For you 
find there none of the green grass, 
the trim flower beds, the branching 
trees that you are used to see in 
other graveyards. But the monu- 
ments and mortuary chapels are 
built almost as high as houses, and 
packed together like houses in ter- 
races and rows, with avenues and 
alleys paved with hard cobble stones 
running like streets between them. 
It seems, indeed, as though the 
Parisians loved their city life so 
well that they must needs have a 
city to dwell in after death. 


i 7 8 


Gbe 1 Reb Spell. 


That is the appearance of the 
cemetery of Pere La Chaise to-day ; 
that is the appearance it has borne 
for more than twenty years. But 
when Ernest Durand and his rough 
comrade passed its barriers on that 
Sunday afternoon in May, it was a 
very different sight they saw there. 

The Communists had made a 
fortress and a camp of Pere La 
Chaise. They had entrenched them- 
selves among the tombs, breaking 
down the monuments to build their 
barricades, and using the wreaths 
of immortelles to make their 
bivouac. A battery of six guns in 
front of the chapel threw its shells 
into the heart of Paris, a smaller 
battery to the right answered the 
big guns that pounded at it from 
the Butte Mont-martre. Behind the 
great gate that opens on the Rue 
La Roquette was a solid barricade 
protected by artillery, and other 
barricades stood elsewhere, where- 


Gbe l Ret) Spell. 


179 


ever it seemed to the defenders 
that an attack was possible. 

But that was only half the hor- 
ror of the spectacle. For below 
raged the flames of blazing Paris, 
which all the efforts of the firemen 
of the Versaillais had still been 
unable to extinguish, and the roar 
of cannon, the rattle of musketry, 
and the savage shouts of the sol- 
diers told of the death agony of the 
Commune being played at the few 
rallying points elsewhere that still 
remained unvanquished ; while near 
at hand and drawing continually 
nearer, amid the wrecks of shat- 
tered houses, were seen the uni- 
forms of Vinoy’s regiments pre- 
paring for the assault. And 
through all the horror with the in- 
evitable end of it apparent to every 
eye, these men kept up their cour- 
age, and laughed at danger and 
blasphemed at death ; and the 
women let themselves be kissed 


180 Gbe IReD Spell. 

behind the tombstones, and the 
wounded men threw wine upon 
their wounds and drank to the 
Commune with their comrades. 

Pale from loss of blood and 
trembling with his weakness, Ernest 
Durand came down into this place 
of tumult leaning on the Belleville 
workman’s arm. He passed the 
great trench — the fosse commune — 
where lay the bodies of the Arch- 
bishop, the Abbe Duguerray, and 
the other hostages slain at La 
Roquette. A shudder shook him, 
but he repressed it with an effort 
and walked on. Some of the Com- 
munists recognized him as he passed 
and raised a cheer. Members of the 
Council of the Commune were not 
plentiful that day at P&re La Chaise 
and the advent of one of them was 
matter for jubilant remark. Many 
of those leaders were dead, and many 
more of them had fallen away from 
the cause because death seemed so 


Zbc 1Re£> SpclL 181 

certain. So while Ernest Durand 
looked round among the faces of 
the crowd, and hardly discovered 
any that he knew, his passage 
through their midst was greeted 
with loud cries of “ Vive Durand.” 

And it chanced that as he came, 
and even before the cry that wel- 
comed him was raised, his name 
was already on the lips of some of 
them. 

For in one of the corners of the 
ground a knot of men were talking, 
while they waited for the battle to 
begin, and telling each other which 
of their leaders had been false, and 
which faithful to the Commune. 

“ Vimorel is dead, I know,” one 
said, “ and so is Milliere, and so is 
Raoul Rigault. But does any one 
know what has happened to Du- 
rand ? ” 

" Durand ? He is dead also with- 
out doubt,” the other answered. 

“You think that ?” 


182 


Gbe Web Spell* 


“ How should I think otherwise ? 
Durand is a brave man, and if he 
were not dead then it is certain that 
he would be with us here at Pere 
La Chaise." 

It happened, too, that Suzanne 
Touffroy was near the group, and 
hearing the name spoken, she lis- 
tened and looked up. 

A woman joined in the talk — a 
petroleuse — a dishevelled harridan 
of Belleville, with grime on her face 
and blood upon her hands. 

“ Durand is not dead," she said. 
“ He is a traitor." 

“ Durand a traitor ? Who says 
Durand is a traitor ? " 

“ I say so." 

“ How do you know he is a 
traitor ? " 

“ Because I was there at the 
Hotel de Ville, where we had gone 
to ask Delescluze for a mitrailleuse 
in order to defend Mont-martre, 
and heard what the people said. 


3 be IReb Spell. 183 

Durand quarrelled with Delescluze. 
It was when the Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety gave the order for the 
burning of the Tuileries. Durand 
opposed them. He said that it was 
an infamy ! A National Guard who 
was at the door heard him say so. 
They would have arrested Durand, 
he told me, if he had not escaped.” 

“ Good. A pity they did not. 
Death to all the bourgeoisie, say I, 
and if Durand is bourgeois at heart, 
death also to Durand.” 

An idle thought — a grimly humor- 
ous thought if any one had seen its 
humor — to wish death to any man at 
such an hour. But the listeners 
only blasphemed hideously, until 
at last, Suzanne struck into the 
wrangle to defend Ernest Durand 
from this charge of treachery, and 
to tell how, to her knowledge, he 
had only left the Hotel de Ville to 
lead the men of Saint Antoine to 
the barricades. But almost before 


184 


Cbe iReb Spell. 


she had begun to tell her story, 
they heard the shouting in the other 
quarters of the cemetery, and above 
the cry of “Vive la Commune 
caught the cry of “ Vive Durand.’* 

The woman’s fingers reached out 
with a meaning gesture towards the 
trigger of her musket. Suzanne 
saw the action and sprang forward, 
but one of the men anticipated her, 
and with a rapid movement struck 
the barrel up. 

“ Stay ! ” he cried. “ If Durand 
comes here then it is certain he is 
no traitor.” 

“ The other echoed, “ True, those 
are not traitors who come to fight 
after the game is up at Pere La 
Chaise. Vive la Commune, my 
friends, and Vive Durand.” 

So their mood changed in a mo- 
ment, and enthusiasm succeeded to 
distrust. As he advanced in their 
direction they all joined in the cry 
of “ Vive Durand,” and the men 


Gbe *KeD Spell. 


185 

ran forward and held out their 
hands to welcome him, and the 
woman, who but an instant since 
had seemed to hunger for his life, 
insisted on throwing her blood- 
smeared arms about his neck and 
kissing him. 

Ernest Durand submitted to their 
tumultuous greeting, as he had al- 
ready submitted to other greetings 
of the sort while he was passing 
through the cemetery. But there 
was no answering enthusiasm in his 
manner, for his mood was a very 
different mood from theirs. 

The final butchery was very 
close. The thunder of the guns 
was louder ; the rolling of the drums 
was heard beneath, heralding the 
attack that was to begin directly ; 
men caught up their rifles hurriedly, 
and shouted contradictory orders 
to each other to rally here or there, 
or to train the cannon this way or 
that. But Ernest Durand stood 


1 86 


Z be IReD Spell. 


calm in the midst of the confusion, 
with neither hatred nor passion in 
his look — only a profound despair, 
tempered by a profound disdain. 

At first — his thoughts being else- 
where — he had not even seen Su- 
zanne, and she, for a moment re- 
membering what their last parting 
had been like, had a mind to pre- 
tend that she did not see him 
either. But the thought flashed out 
of her mind as quickly as it had en- 
tered it, and she ran up to him, and 
spoke. 

“ So you have come/’ she said. 
“ I always knew that you would 
come. If only I thought that it 
was for my sake that you came.” 

“ I have come for the Commune’s 
sake, Suzanne,” he answered. 

“Yes, yes, I know. You were 
always a good Communist. That 
is what made it so cruel that you 
would not love me.” 

And then, in a softer tone, and 


{Tbe IReb Spell. 187 

without any of the old accent of 
reproach or blame. 

“ And she — she has let you come.” 

“ She did not know,” he said, and 
then turned the subject quickly, 
speaking of her own care for him 
when he was wounded, and saying 
that he owed his life to her — the 
life that he had now come to Pere 
La Chaise to end. 

But she cut short his speech, 
laying her hands upon his shoulder, 
and looking up into his eyes. 

“ You wish to thank me, Ernest ? ” 
she said, and paused. 

“ Yes, of course, I wish to thank 
you, Suzanne.” 

She looked at him steadfastly for 
a moment. 

“ Then make haste and kiss me — 
one real kiss, of your own accord, 
before my time comes to die.” 

Why should he refuse. Surely 
she had earned this, seeing that she 
had saved his life. With the tumult 


1 88 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


of the fight beginning round them, 
he bent down and kissed her on the 
lips. 

For a second she clung to him 
passionately, as though she would 
fasten love for her upon him. Then, 
with a sudden movement, she broke 
away from him again. 

“ There,” she cried. “ Now I go 
to get myself killed before you are 
sorry that you kissed me,” and, be- 
fore he could answer her she had 
run down the hill out of his sight 
towards the big barricade that 
faced the entrance-gate. 

Then for a space he was left alone 
with his own thoughts. He trav- 
eled back again in fancy to the 
little room in the Rue des Etrang- 
ers, and a sob swelled in his throat 
when he thought of Elise and of 
the happiness that might have been 
theirs if the Commune had never 
come between them. It was only a 
short fortnight since she had said 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


189 


to him in the Garden of the Tuiler- 
ies that life was worth more than 
politics, and that one must choose 
between them. How could he say 
that she was wrong when this was 
where politics had led him — to do 
battle in this fearful place, with 
none but ruffians and assassins, 
whose crimes he loathed, for his 
allies ? Not that he could turn 
back now. No, no. The Commune 
itself was great and glorious, al- 
though the Communists had shamed 
it, and he had gone so far that he 
must go on till the end. And yet, 
and yet — 

But as he mused, standing there 
alone, a little group of Communists 
suddenly ran by him, and one of 
them observing that he carried no 
weapon, and had nothing in his 
hand except a light malacca cane, 
broke into his reverie, calling 
rudely : 

“ I see you are unarmed, Citizen 


190 


Gbe IReD Spell. 


Durand. You do not go to fight the 
Versaillais with your walking- 
stick ? ” 

With a stony impassive look in 
his grey eyes, he answered, 

“ Yes, Citizen, it is as you say. I 
am unarmed.” 

A dozen weapons of one sort or 
another were held out to him by 
eager hands. A dozen eager voices 
cried : 

“ Here, Citizen Durand ! Take 
this ! Take this ! ” 

But Ernest Durand waved them 
all back with a strange dignity be- 
yond their understanding. 

“ Thank you ail, Citizens,” he 
said, “but I have no need for arms 
to-day. I do not fight for the Com- 
mune any more. I only die for it.” 

The words amazed them, and 
they stood round him speechless, 
wondering at what he said. There 
were some among them who hated 
him for the saying, and feeling that 


Ube IReb Spell* 191 

he scorned them would have been 
glad to slay him where he stood. 
But the spell of excitement fell 
upon the rest, and roused them to a 
wild enthusiasm for the devotion of 
the man who, though he sympa- 
thized with them no more by reason 
of the things that they had done, 
had come down to Pere La Chaise 
to die with them all the same. 
They burst into a sudden cheer : 

“ Vive Durand, vive Durand ! 
they bellowed madly, tossing their 
caps into the air and pushing right 
and left to find a place for him in 
the very forefront of the fight. 

And the others heard the cheer 
and caught it up, they knew not why, 
so that even above the cry of “ Vive 
la Commune,” the cry of “ Vive 
Durand, vive Durand,” passed all 
along their line of battle as they saw 
him with the blood-stained bandage 
on his brow and his red scarf girt 
about his sober suit of black, stand- 


I 9 2 


XZbe IReD Spell. 


ing erect with folded arms upon the 
barricade, and waiting for his bullet 
in the place where bullets hailed the 
thickest. 

But down below, in the little room 
in the Rue des Etrangers, Elise 
Rollin still slept on. The tumult 
of the battle did not wake her, and 
the sun had set, and the last Com- 
munist defense had yielded, and the 
Commune itself had become a 
memory before they came and told 
her how at last the Red Spell had 
drawn her lover to his death. 


THE END. 

















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